world

My Poem ‘My Space’

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

Some people find it hard to find their place;
some people thrive and are their most happy
when they are in their own space;
some people need total quiet to concentrate
and to work efficiently;
some people can work anywhere,
no matter the noise they are surrounded by –
some writers and artists like creating
in the sanctuary of their office or studio,
while others can easily write a thousand words
while sitting at a table in the middle of a busy cafe.

Some people feel at home on a beach;
some people feel at their best
when they are with someone somewhere that they can teach;
some people feel alive when they are behind the wheel of car;
some people feel their most comfortable
when they are sitting on their sofa watching films in the dark.

My place, my space, varies from day to day;
my face, my tastes, change as frequently as the weather;
my thoughts, my interests,can seem as if
I am choosing from an inspiration buffet;
when my stories, my worries, are the furthest thing from my mind,
the ease that which I move through the world
can seem as light, and as unbounded,
as that of the flight of a feather.

My life has been shaken up so many times,
I would almost call the answers to the questions
that I pose to myself about life
as insightful and meaningful as that of a Magic 8-ball;
my observations about the world
often feel like I am either celebrating, critiquing,
admonishing, or marveling in wonder
at the state of the human race;
instincts can sometimes feel to me
like I am talking and listening in
on a seven billion person conference call.

My natural way of being, acting,
feeling, breathing, seeing, thinking,
and the place where I find the deepest of meaning
and inspiration, is when I know that I have arrived
where I always know that this is my base,
and the infinite frontier that is my space.

My Poem ‘A World of Difference’

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

Today I gave money to a homeless person;
today I gave a smile to someone
who really looked like they needed it;
today I offered to help someone;
today I bought a gift for someone, and it felt good;
today I thought about a friend,
and I silently gave them my love;
today I wrote a poem;
today I hoped that one day no one
would ever have to want for anything,
and that we all would honestly be able to say
that we have enough;
today I marveled at the spirit of generosity
that I felt in the air;
today I watched the sunrise,
and I am about to watch the sunset;
today I had a conversation with a random stranger
in a music store about vinyl albums,
and about how music sounds better
when it is played on a record player;
today I am thankful for what I have,
and not for what I don’t have –
because it is important to remember
sometimes that we are one person,
of one life, on one planet,
and one act of thanks and gratitude
can make a world of difference.

My Poem ‘World Wide Watcher’

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

The preoccupation of the poet;
the articulation of the artist;
the wonder of the writer;
the drive of authenticity of a director on a movie set;
the character in the cuisine of a chef in their signature dish;
the seascape, the solitude, the sense of serenity,
the smell of salt from the sea water all around,
that you live to inhale every day if you live the life of a sailor.

A poet looks at the world and sees infinite depth,
and the connections that bind everything with everyone
that are always there and have been sustaining nature,
the planets, the stars, the universe,
since the beginning of time;
an artist captures a moment in time and preserves it,
and imbues emotion and feeling into it,
and captures a piece of themselves in their painting,
sketch, sculpture, monument;
a photographer use their camera as if it were a macro-scope,
and they show just how fleeting and precious every moment is,
and that life is like the arc of a rocket –
that twists and turns, before finally leaving the atmosphere –
and is not just a straight-line;
a normal person, living their life from day to day,
who has no philosophical or artistic leaning or orientation,
knows that there are things in life that are important.

Everyone who has sight, feeling –
a sense of change going on around them,
passed them, inside them,
that is a continuum and a state of energy
that could be conceptualized as a constantly-flowing river –
sees, but cannot understand the answer to why life is the way it is,
but who will always be like everybody else:
a fully-fledged, world wide watcher.

My Poem ‘Skyscraper’

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

Even when I am low,
I am always looking up;
even on my worst day,
you can always find me sitting,
standing, walking, dreaming,
somewhere with hope in my heart,
a pen, and my notebook;
even behind dark clouds, I can see the sun;
even when my head is full of confusion,
I can still smile-
because I know that in my life I have The One.

The poet, the infinite,
the chameleon of caring and compassion;
the one I have been dreaming of,
even when I was a kid
and I was picturing the most beautiful person
there could ever be in my vivid imagination.

People like me are few and far between;
people who think and care as much as I do
hide for the most part in plain sight;
people like me are rarer now than they used to be;
people like me are capable of creating and emitting
an internal fire and light.

Children are constantly looking up at everything,
and everything to them is bigger, taller,
as high as the clouds in the sky;
to a child everything has depth and meaning to it-
a child is constantly asking the best
and the most important question there is- all day, every day:
why?

I guess that I have not yet fully grown up,
because I am still asking questions and searching for answers
even when I already know what I am going to find-
I personally hope I never grow up to be someone
who is just one shade of colour, and of one mind.

I walk through and I see beauty more times in one day
than I could ever remember, or say;
I see the potential of people who may be finding it hard
to pick a direction and find their way;
I embrace rituals, music, talent, intense love, passion,
and calls from people who are just like me,
and who advertise themselves to those who see them
for who they are, as if they were a walking and talking
advertisement in a newspaper;
I see magic; I see more;
I want to receive more;
I want to give more;
I want others to know
that so much about life is undeniably epic;
I want people to know that they can see
and experience heaven on Earth,
and to do that they only need to see, meet,
and know a beautiful and inspirational person,
or to have looked at the world, far, above, below,
from one of the world’s tallest skyscrapers.

My Poem ‘Gunpowder’

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

There is a full-moon shining;
there are a million stars above my head twinkling;
there is the unmistakable smell of distant fires;
there is another indistinguishable aroma,
taste, sensation, in the air,
that invigorates me-
races the blood in my veins,
enlarges my heart, expands my lungs-
and that is what everyone, everywhere,
on this night, here,
which was to be Guy Fawkes’ modus operandi
a long time ago, on a similar night,
on the fifth of November:
the powder that helps propel a bullet,
that which is contained and which explodes
within a firework-
the one and only, gunpowder.

The black sky is coloured with every colour;
flashes and bangs, light and sound,
enthrall, surprise, awe-inspire, constantly
with little-to-no pause, in rapid-frequency.
Adults look up, children grin with excitement-
everyone wants to be outside, even in the cold,
so that they can feel the rush of being awestruck,
and so that they can remember, experience,
and know what is important.

A brilliant expression of celebration;
a phenomenal invention that has changed the world,
more than anything anyone may be able to mention;
a visceral spectacle that you can see and hear
that does not come much louder-
the explosive mixture at the other end of a fuse
that sends rockets into the sky,
and hearts and imaginations souring into the great unknown;
a magical dust that should always be handled with care;
that is in the air at this time of the year,
before, and beyond, the time of the midnight hour-
the defining chemistry, and DNA of a firework:
gunpowder.

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Remember remember the 5th of November

My Poem ‘The Cure for Cancer’

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

We live in an incredible day and age
when we can do almost anything-
we can do almost anything,
we can go almost everywhere,
we can say almost everything,
we can enjoy the wonders of the world
that surrounds us, without a care;
however, there are things that we cannot do,
there are places that we cannot go,
there are things that we cannot say;
there are people in this life
whose destiny it is to live
the shortest of lives,
and to be afflicted with a disease
that touches and effects the lives of everyone,
young and old, everywhere-
a life-changing shadow,
which no light shone can yet completely cure,
and that darkness is cancer.

My aunt Mary died of cancer
when I was a teenager,
and unfortunately I did not see
or get a chance to say goodbye
to my auntie before she died.
My Dad’s older sister,
I remember was always someone who was smiling,
happy, thinking about everybody else;
my auntie Mary came with us to Florida
when I was a child,
and even though I was very young
I remember her enjoyment, her smile,
her heart of adventure at being
in an unknown country
and experiencing adventures,
that you would always keep with you,
that are literally once in a life-time.
I remember taking my aunt’s, my uncle’s,
my family members’ faces, voices, and spirit
for granted, and never once thinking
that they would ever die, or be in ill-health.

We all take things and people for granted,
and we all stupidly hold grudges on people
who are as human as we are,
and who know they are,
because they are going through their own
trial of mortality.
Cancer has touched and has been a big part
of the life of every family,
and right now it is still touching my family,
and it is still having a profound effect
on every family, and when I think
of what cancer is, and what it means,
and where the fight to beat it has taken people
and will take people,
I feel small, I feel weak,
I feel like if it were possible
that the life of one person
could change the direction of the tide
in eradicating and subduing cancer forever,
I would choose to willingly sacrifice my life
so that every other life of humanity
may be spared more pain and anguish,
and so that no one else may have to
fight every day to preserve
the memory of their identity.

We can all be a part of finding a truth
that may one day be the key
to understanding and building a future of hope,
devoid of the word, the hurt,
the silent fear, that is cancer;
we can all be there to give all that we can,
in any way that we can;
we can all be there for those who need us
now more than ever;
we can all be the difference;
we can all be a part of the cure for cancer.

My Poem ‘Our Room’

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

The space, the place, the sanctuary,
the part of our home where we can truly be;
the dance-floor that is there for us to move around on
like John Travolta;
the studio where we can listen to music,
and create our own;
and where we can sing
while channeling every kind of performer-
from a ‘rock god’, to a classically-trained tenor of opera.

In our room, we are surrounded by all of personal possessions
and memories, and all our favourite things
that we have collected throughout our lives;
in our room, we can read, study, surf, watch,
and interact with the rest of the world,
while wearing the face and name of any guise.

Our room is where we dream;
our room is where we can talk to friends;
our room is the place where not that many people have been,
or will ever see;
our room is a cocoon that contains all that we need
for any and every day, and any eventuality,
from the instant that we emerge and rise from our bed.

Our room should not just be the place where we sleep;
our room should not just be where we spend
one-third of our lives without nothing to show for it;
our room should be our temple, our library,
our catwalk, our personality, our gallery,
our place of safety, our place of serenity,
our place of development and growth-
like a mothers womb;
where we return to and enter with a smile;
where we feel and can imagine ourselves as anything, or anyone;
where we can lose our inhibitions,
and shower ourselves with all kinds of magic-
that is the place that is our room.

My Poem ‘Five’

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

Some people work all through the night;
some people have to get up before the sun rises,
and work all day;
some people have to wear a specific uniform,
or a particular kind of attire-
like a shirt and tie;
some people have to fight through busy traffic
in a car, on a bus, on a bike, on foot,
that is the same every day in every way.

There are more jobs in this world
than most people know about;
there are more ways to pay your way in life
than can be imagined;
there are jobs that can keep someone dry
and warm on a rainy day;
there are some jobs that on a sunny day
you can take great pleasure,
just because you are able to be out and about;
there are jobs that you have to travel to and from by train;
there are jobs that when you try to describe them
they are hard to convey.

People have lots that they have to work with;
people have lots of coworkers who they have to work alongside;
people have jobs that they sometimes find hard to live with;
people have jobs that they know they will be doing
until the day they die.

You are truly blessed in your life
if you can do and enjoy a job that you do,
which you love doing;
I envy those people who can be
who they want to be all of the time-
to have the chance to live their dream,
some people would do anything.

The perfect job and profession,
to me, is one that does not pay the most,
and is not all about how it is valued
by the amount of zeroes that follow
the pound, or the dollar, sign.

Finding a job and having a job that you like doing
and care about is a rare thing to have indeed;
when you have not had a job and you want a job,
any job, you will do all that you need;
some jobs that people do constantly reinvigorate them,
make them feel a sense of achievement,
and make them feel alive.
If you are someone who genuinely likes, or even loves,
what they do for a living,
think of it as a walk in the park,
or a steady countryside drive-
whatever you do, wherever you work,
whether you are on a shift from seven until seven,
from sunrise to sunset,
or behind a desk or a table every day of the week,
from nine til five.