world

My Poem ‘Free the world’

Mark Hastings Poetry , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

Break all the chains;
smash all the tanks;
free all the animals
and let them live in a world
without the threat of pain
and forced-incarceration,
and let them be what they were born to be
with the rest of their species,
and let them do what they feel like doing,
and not what someone with £ or $ signs in their eyes
expects and wants them to do.

Break down all the walls;
tear down all the fences;
end the obsession of the powerful
to feel important through control of the few;
let the world see what lies in the hearts
of the cruel, and capture their crimes
in black and white with words,
or through the aperture of camera lenses.

End the slavery of every living and feeling thing;
let the whales and the dolphins
swim in the ocean from where we all came from;
let the ring-leaders of fear be held accountable
for their sins, and stop the extinction
of life for no good reason.

Prison is prison;
if you commit a crime, you pay the price;
but what could a defenseless animal have done
to suddenly find itself unable to do
what it was born to do, and what everything deserves:
to live a normal and free life?

Some people can be so closed-minded;
some people who want to see the face of true cruelty
need only look in a mirror;
some people are so opportunistically blinded,
and all they care about is money,
that they don’t see the river of blood running behind them
that without them and what they have done
would not be there.

I care about life so much;
I don’t want the children of tomorrow
to grow up seeing, thinking, believing
that being a bully and being the one
who holds power over someone less strong
is in any way a means to feeling important or tough.
I want everyone and everything on Earth
to run free, swim free, break free,
climb high, dive deep,
and not live in distress, nor in fear
of being scared, scarred, or even killed.
I want life to be lived.
I want to help free the world.

My Poem ‘Our Earth Hour’

Mark Hastings Poetry , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

If all the lights were to go out
all over the world;
if electricity suddenly became
a thing of the past;
if we could no longer communicate
over vast distances so easy
as we can right now,
and instead we had to rely
to get our message across
the beauty of the written and the spoken word;
if we all had to travel to another place;
and the speed of life became so slow and easy –
as opposed to complex and fast;
if we could all stand in silence
and not hear another sound,
but the music inside us;
if we could no longer be drawn to distraction
by the life of other people who we don’t even know:
what would be the thing that fills our focus?
what would we do? where would we go?

If a far-away friend was literally a world away,
and you may only see them once, or twice, in your life –
would their friendship mean more to you,
because of the realization that most things that happen,
and most of the friends that we make,
are collages of moments that are so brief in duration
they are merely grains of sand
in the galactic hour-glass of time?

Our individual definitions of happiness
are influenced, and are reflections,
of what we value the most about life,
and about living on our planet;
our own inter-dependency on certain things
is something that is a part of our DNA –
where once we used to depend and be in awe of the sun
and used to base our choices on what we interpreted,
in this day and age, however,
we look to different sources of light to be our guide.

Earth will endure;
our home planet will turn and change,
and keep doing what it has been doing
for billions of years,
long after humanity comes to the perception,
the appreciation, and the conscious comprehension,
of what truly matters and what the true source is
of our collective power;
Earth is not only a paradise of wonder and beauty
where life of all kinds can live and thrive,
it is also the perfect home, answer,
antidote, inspiration and cure;
our home world is an amazing place
that we should and we must appreciate for what it is
and for what it means –
this hour, this day, every day,
every second of every Earth hour.

My Poem ‘Sputnik’

Mark Hastings Poetry , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

It’s six o’clock at night,
on a cool spring evening,
and I am looking out my window to the sky
at a beautiful gold and blue light,
watching the sun setting –
and the sight of it takes my breath away;
and within seconds,
I watch the sky go from red to grey,
as all that I see becomes draped
in the dark veil of twilight.

I watch the stars appear;
I see the planets rise;
I see the ultimate display of the constellations,
and I name them one by one, as I imagine them;
and then, when I see the constellation of Orion,
I am awestruck by how wonderfully its stars
shine so clear, and my entire vision
is that of an infinite number of stars in my eyes.

I spent my day taking in nature,
listening to the world around me,
being captivated by birdsong,
and watching the building of bird-nests
in the branches of the trees above,
and in the hedges of the ground below;
I spent my day believing that I knew
all in life that I could ever need to know.

Right this second, I feel like a satellite;
right at this moment, I feel like I am alone in space,
and no one even knows I am here –
because I am just a faint moving white dot in the dark sky;
right now, I feel so far away –
like a distant flickering candle
in the window of a cottage atop a hill;
and barely noticeable –
like a star of the night;
now, I look down,
and around at everyone else on Earth,
and I see what I can of their lives:
I see true happiness,
and I wonder what that feels like.

I look up at the moon;
I gaze up at the stars;
I see the heavens –
the place from where we all came from,
and I dream that I may return there soon;
I imagine that I can reach up and touch the sky,
because in the dark the void of space
does not seem that far.

Every human being has looked above
on a star-lit night, and wondered:
are we alone in the universe?
And, is anybody else out there?
I have asked myself that very question,
and I know the definitive answer –
and I speak that answer aloud every night.

Everybody sometimes goes into their own
“hibernation mode”, in which they appear
to leave their worries in another place somewhere;
I have always found it difficult
to remove myself from the world,
and not think about what is always on my mind;
some days I wish I could be a living, breathing,
astronaut floating in space –
or a part of Earth, circling the planet,
like the very first satellite: Sputnik.

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My Poem ‘Sweetness & Light’

Mark Hastings Poetry , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

As the sweet taste of maple syrup
touches my lips,
as the sunlight streams in
through the window,
as the first shot of caffeine of my day
starts to hit,
as my mind races faster
than you could know,
as the world that I see gets started,
as the inspiration unfurls,
as life dances to the rhythm of a brand new party,
as the spiral of clouds begin to swirl;
I do my thing, I write my words;
I listen to my music and I want to sing;
I go into my zone, and I imagine a hopeful world;
I look, I see, I remember, I think,
I strut, I write poetry,
I feel like I am being carried on the wind like a feather;
I close my eyes; I fantasize;
I take another electric and stimulating sip of my drink;
I feel comfortable, I feel at ease,
I feel in control, I feel like the world
is racing towards me at full-speed;
as long as I am on the open road I cannot ever stop;
as long as I continue to believe,
I know anything can happen;
as long as I hope for happiness,
I will taste sweetness;
as long as I have the future in front of me,
I will continue to breath;
as long as I know what to do,
I will continue to follow the pattern;
as long as the world is bright,
I will continue to race towards the light.

My Poem ‘Soleil’

Mark Hastings Poetry , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

The sun is inspiration;
outside in the sunlight
is where everybody wants to be;
whether you live in Canada,
Great Britain, Australia, or Peru,
being touched by the sun
is a feeling that brings out
something good and happy in you –
at least it always does with me.

A sunny day always reminds me of my childhood;
a bright and beautiful morning always reminds me
and makes me think of family holidays;
watching the world and seeing it clear and golden
is how I wish it would look every minute of every day.

There is an energy that you can feel and see;
there are colours that just pop
with greater intensity and vibrancy;
there is a rhythm in the air,
like a unique music composed solely by nature,
that vibrates from every direction –
as if every atom of the world
were its own individual speaker;
there is a connection that binds us all to our maker.

Windows become mirrors;
the leaves of the trees
look as if they themselves are emanating light;
the meaning of life, and the perfection of our world,
can be perceived while swimming in an ocean of water,
or while on a boat making your way down a river;
there are worlds within worlds happening all at once,
and almost everything there is to be found
is occurring beyond our sight.

Hummingbirds, butterflies, birds, dolphins, whales,
men, women, children, animals, flowers, plants, insects –
every form of life has its own relationship
to the star of Earth’s blue sky;
to me, there are some things
that just perfectly represent and symbolize
intense and eternal love;
just like a person,
to a star there is always more than meets the eye;
to me, there will always be
something phenomenal about being
in the light of the sun.

My Poem ‘Heart to Heart’

Mark Hastings Poetry , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

It always feels exhilarating
to get something off your chest;
it always feels amazing to say something
that you have been meaning to say;
it always feels great to ask something of someone
that for a long time you have only had
the opportunity to guess;
it always feels liberating
to give a secret about yourself away.

Procreation, pregnancy,
the creation of new life has always intrigued me;
maintaining a legacy, passing on knowledge,
keeping a tradition alive for a new generation to carry on,
is something that truly fascinates and enthralls me.

Children learning about their family
from the stories told to them by their parents;
parents engaging with their children,
and showing interest in what they like to do,
and what they think;
children being allowed to say what they see,
and create their own picture of the world,
from a vast mosaic of pieces of life that they see,
and connecting together the fragments;
parents allowing their children to be children,
without any unneeded pressure
about who they should be too early –
in my opinion, the best gift you can give any child
is the knowledge that life itself is a teacher
and a lesson, and if you pay close attention
to what is going on around you,
and how you feel about things,
there is no knowing what you will discover
about the world, and about yourself,
and with the right knowledge
and an abundance of passion and enthusiasm
there is no knowing what might happen.

Children can only be taught so much by their teachers
and their parents, and there comes a time
in every boy and girl’s life when they realize
that they have to make a decision for themselves
with their own mind and their own reasoning,
and make a choice that might inform their entire future;
children can only be protected and held back
from the big wide world for so long,
and the moment that they realize
that they have to start paying for what they want,
every child has this worry about what to do next,
as they are engulfed by a massive wave of fear.

Every parent will tell you
that bringing up a child is not easy;
every child will tell you
that no one shines brighter in their eyes
than those who raise them, those who praise them,
and they who just by being there for them when they need them,
who make them extremely happy;
every parent will admit that providing and balancing
what a child needs with what they want can sometimes be hard;
every child, in not so many words, most of the time,
just wants to know that they are wanted,
and that they are loved,
and the best and the most amazing way
a parent and a child can show this
is to talk to each other,
and not be afraid to look into each other’s eyes,
and have a heart to heart.

My Poem ‘The Walking King’

Mark Hastings Poetry , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

I love walking. I have always loved walking.
I love discovering, I love exploring,
I love adapting; I love finding new ground;
I love trekking, and I happily would walk and keep going
until I could be counted among the lost and found.

When you walk, you see the world
and you get to take in its beauty;
when you walk, the depth of colour
and the exquisite detail that you can see stretches to infinity;
and the ecosystem that carries on regardless
of the sometimes pettiness of humanity, do not blink –
because to them they have an entire life
and a whole world of their own to survive in,
thrive in, and do the best that they can in,
and most of the time these self-contained worlds,
that occasionally overlap, are focused of a single goal
and an encompassing need to
maintain their species’ well-being.

When I walk, I see things, I hear things,
I think about things, I imagine things,
I feel things, that I would not anywhere else,
while doing anything else, and I feel transformed,
and I do not for a second want to stop feeling
or being the person I am,
because the thrill and the rush that galvanizes me
is more powerful than any drug,
and it is a natural instinct and magic
that comes from within us all,
as well as from our surroundings –
whether we are walking free and roaming
in the air of the countryside,
or in a park, or even along the streets
and pavements of a busy city.

If you love to walk, like me,
you will walk anywhere, at any time –
in the daylight, in the dark,
in the peaceful solitude of the wilderness,
in the noisy and chaotic motorway of a never-ending,
never-stopping, never abating living laboratory
of an energetic and energizing metropolis.

The call to be on your feet
is one that a walker, and a runner, cannot ignore,
and it may even wake them in the middle of the night
as they sleep soundly;
the importance and the gift to walk
is one that is primal, and runs deep;
sometimes we can act without having to think,
and walking is one of those things
that if we can we will do,
and under our own subconscious locomotion
we can achieve and maintain without at blink.

Those of us who can walk take it for granted;
those of us who can climb, go anywhere,
stand on a mountain, walk on the seafloor,
have the amazing gift to see and go to
every corner of every country and continent
on our wondrous and beautiful planet.

When I walk, I take in the temperature
and the touch of the air;
when I walk, I feel exhilarated,
as I witness the incredible, the unbelievable,
the fantastic, and the amazing;
when I walk, I am in my own world,
and I feel like I can go anywhere;
when I walk, the world truly comes alive,
and sometimes I cannot believe my eyes,
as I witness the endless cycle of a world in the making,
that I am a part of, and more often than not
when I walk, I love the feeling
of being a “Walking King”.

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My Poem ‘Epilogue’

Mark Hastings Poetry , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

Just as the sun must set,
so too must the last chapter of a story be written and told;
just as you might look back on your life
and remember things that you would much rather forget,
so too must you never forget that things happen
as they were always meant to happen,
and nothing that feels timeless can ever be old.

You never want a journey to end,
especially when you have been having the time of your life;
you never want to reach the end of a book,
because then you know all about the story within, its conclusion,
and even if you do read it again it will never be the same;
you never want to fall asleep,
especially if your life feels so amazing and dreamlike –
because you don’t want to wake up
and perhaps find out that your world
has just been a fantastic, idyllic, paradise;
you never want to put memories of places
and people to the back of your mind –
me, personally, I would rather have a moving picture gallery
of the good times in my life all around me,
and each one mounted beautifully in a gold frame.

Like most people,
I have known the very best of times,
I have known the very worst of times –
and usually both extremes of the other
within a short space of time;
like most people,
I have made the best of everything that I could –
especially when the road ahead, and my head,
felt like they were a winter field of dense fog;
like most people, I am a poet of his time –
however, what makes me who I am
will always be something that is hard to define;
unlike most people, at the start of every new day,
I write a brand new introduction
to introduce myself to the rest of the world;
and at the end of every day and brand new night,
I dream a dream that completely captures
and reflects my entire life –
like a mirror, or like a song –
in a brand new and beautifully written epilogue.

My Poem ‘Foreverland

Mark Hastings Poetry , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

The stories we tell children
are incredibly important;
the traditions that we keep
are how the world works;
the tales that we children
are what they need and what they want;
the observance, the ritual,
the continuation, the spoken word,
the twilight bedtime storytelling,
to a child is like imaginary, magical,
meaningful, and real fireworks.

Retelling stories, reenacting and bringing to life
parables, fables, lessons, and legends,
in a play, or in a piece of expressive art,
teaches children early on the power
and the wonder of language and imagination;
even as an adult you will always remember the times
as a child at school when you were taking part
in an ensemble celebration
of one of the greatest gifts of any civilization:
the art of communication.

It is important that children
know about and believe in magic,
and are allowed to dream and imagine anything,
and taught that when it comes to their own potential,
and their future, nothing is impossible;
a child’s life, well-being, and happiness
stems from a constant feeling of comfort
that they must be gifted with from the day they are born;
other worlds, other ways of looking at something,
different ideas, different variations of a theme,
soothing and beautiful music
that sounds as if it is from an album of voices
and melodies from another planet,
can give children a skeleton key to anywhere in time and space,
and give children a truth and a feeling that is so special,
that is so eternal, it is fantastic.

Dreams and wishes do comes true,
but sometimes not when you expect them to;
you can do and see just as many breathtaking and beautiful,
hopeful and gorgeous, spectacles when you are awake
as well as when you are sailing away
on the winds and waves of your dreamland.
If you believe and never forget
that every person is a story in themselves
that is ever-changing, old, but also brand new,
as an adult, as a child,
you can continue to live he dream of true miracles
that comes naturally if you continue to believe
that everything – the past, the present, the future –
is a foreverland.

My Poem ‘Dreams’

Mark Hastings Poetry , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

Dreams are where we live our second life,
and where we live out our thoughts and wishes;
dreams are the alternate reality
where anything you want to happen can happen
without consequence;
dreams are where we live out our fantasies,
and share hidden kisses;
dreams are where we can go anywhere we can imagine –
into a possible future that you hope will come true,
or the memory of a school trip that you had
to the south of France;
dreams can seem more real than reality,
and can feel like a more desirable place to live;
dreams can seem to last for days,
when you are deeply involved in the constantly changing
and evolving dream creation of another world;
dreams can seem like heaven,
depending on whom you are dreaming you are with;
dreams can seem strange, weird,
too good and fantastic to ever be true,
and wonderfully absurd-
however, dreams are as necessary to life
when we are asleep as oxygen is to us when we are awake;
dreams can be a cure, a therapy, what we need to stay alive,
but also a medicine that can be hard for us to take.

The dreams that we have when we are a child
are the best dreams that we will have in our lives-
especially the good ones;
the dreams that we have when we are an adult
are sometimes mostly filled with worry
and things that we constantly have
floating on the surface of our mind;
the dreams that we have when we are in another country,
or in a wonderful but unfamiliar place,
on holiday, are free of angst and expectation,
and are dreams of pure unbounded imagination;
the dreams that we have after meeting someone new
are as beautiful as what the world must be imagined like
to someone who has for their entire life been completely blind.

I have had hopeful dreams;
I have had beautiful dreams;
I have had dreams in which I have met people
I have wanted to meet since I was young.
I have had nightmares;
I have had bad dreams that have brought me face to face
with the source of all my fears.
I have had imaginary encounters that even to this day
I still remember having,
because they still continue to be more important to me
than to others they might seem.
In my mind, at night,
I have been able to rewrite the times when I was wrong;
I have dreamed of things that I do not clearly remember
in great detail the morning after,
but I have awoken in tears.
I have always been fascinated by the power of inspiration
and the infinite capacity of both the conscious mind,
and the unconscious mind, and I love remembering
and finding the answer to a riddle
played out before me in real life,
of something I once saw, felt, and did in my dreams.