writing

My Poem ‘Zenith’

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

The time is now,
the place is right here;
life can be heard
clear and loud,
the conditions for new inspiration
and new poetry are so perfect
they could bring about
both laughter and tears.

I am focused,
I am listening,
I am being sprinkled
with the world’s magic dust;
I am watching,
I am experiencing,
I am participating,
I am observing everybody and everything;
there are no worries, there is just me,
my pen, my notebook, my muse;
there are thoughts running through my mind
every second that burn hot and bright
and as fast as a burning fuse.

Words are wonderful,
however words are also limiting;
words can say so much,
however words only have the power that they do
when they are used with each other –
and even then, without emotion
and intention behind them,
they can sound as if something important is missing;
music is a different language entirely from words –
words can have so many meanings and translations,
but music is what the stars sound like;
and like planets circling their parent star,
music- depending on your proximity
and your connection to it-
can be a whole new wonderful and different world.

Every artist has their opus;
every person has their perfect moment;
everyone has their own life;
every experience has its peak;
every eye has seen its own sights;
everybody has had a flood of emotion
and an indomitable power overcome them
and take over them
when they must stand up on their own two feet
and vow to never admit defeat.

Everyone is like an ocean,
and everybody has a force of gravity
and a source of change and waves in their life-
like the Moon is to the Earth;
everyone has times when they are an insomniac
and they cannot for the love of good ever switch off;
everyone emerges into a different life
from anyone else from birth;
everyone knows the allure of a flame,
and everyone has a moment
of being a human moth.

There is no true definitive end to anything;
believing that you have total control of chaos is a myth;
there is a reason for everything;
dreams are both conjugations and premonitions;
and there are things that start out so distant
and random that come together in the end
and eventually reach a mutual and lasting zenith.

My Poem ‘Eudaemonic’

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

A simple act of kindness
can give you an upbeat feeling;
a new arrival can instantly make you smile;
a message in a bottle is always a thrill;
a new idea is like a newborn child.

Watching a child grow before your eyes
is like going back in time
and seeing your early life
acted out in front of you;
watching a plant grow and then wilt
does not have as much of an impact
on some people as it should;
watching an animal grow so quickly,
be so active, however only live a short life
in comparison to a human being
can be a joyous but sometimes
incredibly hard thing to do;
watching the world change around you
makes you wish frequently
that if it were possible
to live inside a single special moment forever,
if you could you would.

Some days go by fast,
some days go by slow;
the art of happiness
is to make something last;
the art of acceptance
is to not worry too much
about what you do not know;
some days are filled with fireworks;
some days are spent in reflection;
some days are so perfect
that you could swear
that there were some invisible inner-workings
making everything in life run like clockwork;
some days you are just waiting
for something to grab your attention;
the art of life is to live.

There are words in every language
that are rarely used,
but still exist;
there are faces hidden behind masks
that not everybody are able to see;
there are people who win;
there are people who lose,
but who never stop
and never give in;
there are unique pieces of art
created solely to be one of a kind
and temporary – like graffiti –
that in time will fade from view
and be covered over and forgotten –
but the fact that even one person
knew about them and remembers them
makes the artist that made them
more of a magician than anything else,
because they were able to make the once seen
the thing of a person’s dreams.

What keeps me upbeat is love;
what keeps me writing is hope;
what keeps me smiling only I could think of;
what keeps me from not retreating is never doubting;
what I have always known is that
if you try to silence your doubts,
if you try to see past the illusion of walls
that sometimes feel like they surround you
that can almost feel like a prison cell,
if you try to come to terms with the fact
that not everything that happens to you
is not always all your fault –
then one day you may wake up
with a smile on your face
and realize that all is good
and all will be well.

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My Poem ‘Ruminant’

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

A deer walking through a green wood;
a horse galloping across
a beautiful open expanse;
an eagle soaring and gliding
through the air above a vast herd of buffalo;
an adventurer trekking through a jungle,
with a pack full of all that they need
to survive in the wild,
as the raindrops fall on them
and down the lip of their coat’s hood;
a small dog resting outside in the sun
in their favorite spot,
with a look about them
that says that they are feeling
inconceivable emotions of happiness;
a writer writing
while listening to their muse of music,
writing rhymes as if each word
had its own distinctive sound to them,
that sound like
that of the notes of a musical instrument.

As with everything that is made up of
and from the combination of many ingredients,
all things must ruminate and coalesce
and be infused naturally over time
by the mixture of nature and identity;
just as the present is an echo of the past,
as well as a prelude for the future,
some things must always stay the same,
and if necessary thrive on being different –
because in life strict conformity
can be the true enemy.

Inspirational people
have taken countless people
on journeys throughout history,
and the stories of their deeds
have long out-lived them
and are read and retold every day
to a whole new generation
of free-thinking and inquisitive people
looking for answers to life’s questions,
far and wide;
writers, artists, musicians,
have been struck by instant and deep inspiration
while staring at a flower swaying in the breeze;
children have been recognized for being special
because they chose to work hard
and dig deep and go that extra mile;
animals are sometimes revered for being exceptional
because they represent and they talk
to the needs that we all feel
for contentment and connection
with our surroundings
based on our ever-present instincts.

When I truly allow my thoughts
to flow and to float,
they are like a big fluffy cloud in a blue sky;
when I truly open up
and let my feelings bubble up,
they can sometimes spread
like the waters of a flood;
when I truly focus on the journey,
and not the end, I believe and I know
that life for us all goes on,
even after we die;
when I truly live and breathe
every second of the one that I love,
I feel things that almost defy description
and definition – as if I were
a part of an infinite, amazing,
cosmologically-vast and meaningful meditation.

My Poem ‘Fever’

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

There are places in space,
there are moments in time,
there are faces, there are rhymes,
there are things that happen,
there are people who are who they are,
there are things that draw your attention,
there are an infinite number of multi-coloured stars
that brighten, enliven, and make your life feel
as if it is complete,
there are links that form
that give strength to weak.

Some may look at the landscape of a war-zone
and see desolation and a reason to doubt
the longevity of life on our planet,
while another person looking at the same sight
may see it as an opportunity to rebuild
and to reinvigorate, and to heal old wounds
and to put long-lasting hope into the mortar
and the stone of the newly relaid foundations
and draw lines of inter-connectivity
into the very blueprints of what is being rebuilt.

Anything can happen at any moment;
anybody can imagine anything
when their senses are brought to life,
like a spark to a fire;
even a single word can have lasting importance;
even a single glance and a look
can quickly evolve into desire.

A flash of light and colour;
the touch on your skin of a gust of wind;
the sound of a voice that always pulls you into
a magical world of wonder;
the feeling of euphoria that true love brings;
the way that things are,
the way that the many faces of the universe inter-work,
the way that even the smallest of actions
can have the most life-changing of powers,
is what will always be as things are forever –
and that is why it is always important
to cherish, to take care, and to kindle an idea,
because it does not take much in the right hands
for a single thought and dream
to take over and spread like a fever.

My Poem ‘Eccentric’

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

Everybody has their own quirks of personality;
everybody has something about them
that wonderfully singles them out;
everybody has the rite
to wear the crown of their own reality;
everybody is like the weather of the world –
depending on the temperature,
depending on the colour,
depending on the time of the day, or the year,
the forces of nature
and the thoughts of everybody close by
can combine to reveal wonderful
and phenomenal personal eccentricities.

I love the eccentric;
I adore the quirky;
I love the one of a kind
that are poetic and epic;
I adore the thrill of discovering a new find;
I love the unconventional;
I adore the extraordinary;
I love the language of the true individual;
I adore an oddity.

Everybody in the world is sometimes obsessive;
everybody on the planet is sometimes compulsive;
everybody has their own version
and vision of perfection;
everybody knows how to bring an oasis of peace
to a tumultuous storm of disorder.

Life is an infinite spectrum;
free-spirited and care-free people
are a bubbling cocktail
of many infusions of taste and inspiration –
like a mirror of life
reflecting the world back on itself;
life is a never-ending exploration;
the more natural that something feels
can only be something that is good for your health.

Some people thrive when in the spotlight;
some people would rather live in the shade;
some people are secret masters of life;
some people just want to heal the world
one person at a time –
even if the only thing that they can offer
is a smile to anyone and everyone
who needs one every single day.

There are some people
who like formality and predictability,
over improbability;
there are some people who act with serenity
when everybody else may have already descended
into a state of unbridled panic;
there are some people
who will never change who they are,
who will be amazing in more ways
than they will ever know,
always and indefinitely;
there are some people who are magnetic,
energetic, synergetic, kinetic, poetic,
who are in their own way prophetic –
because they are so wonderfully eccentric.

My Poem ‘Many voices inside the one’

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

Daylight is a flash of many colours;
day life is a mass of many choices;
just as a skyscraper
is a single building of many floors,
the light and the dark of the world
can only stay in balance with one another
if there is always a way and a forum
to speak, to sing, and to shout
with the tongue of many voices.

People learn more in the years
that they are a child
than they will ever learn
in the subsequent decades
that they are alive;
a child could literally grow up
to be anybody that they want;
someone who feels inspiration,
as well as sees inspiration,
in themselves and of themselves,
will be an inspiring bright light;
do not ever believe anyone
who tells you that lightning
cannot strike twice;
the people who truly lead the dance of life
do not always do so front the front.

A building must be built;
a person must grow;
every sword must have a hilt;
there must always be something
that you do not know;
a painting must be painted;
a movie must be written, acted,
filmed, edited, orchestrated, and directed;
music must be a conduit of many hearts;
to be funny, a joke –
no matter how many times it is told –
must always be one that makes everybody laugh.

Nobody can ever choose where,
nor to whom, they are born to –
however, if the history of humanity
can teach is anything
it is that birthplace and parentage
are the place, and they are the people,
from where our lives begin,
but they will never be,
nor should they ever be,
where or why our lives come to an end;
throughout our lives,
the voice that we talk and communicate with
changes depending on our ever-changing environment –
like the skin of a chameleon;
we are all somebody of many voices,
not just the one.

My Poem ‘The Writer Type’

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

I can always tell
another writer when I see them;
I can always tell poetry
whenever I read something
that someone has written;
I can always tell another poet
when I hear them speak
with so much passion,
energy, and depth of intuition
in their voice;
I can always tell
and I always know
when a writer has an idea
for something to write in some form,
because I have that feeling
multiple times a day –
and when you feel that need to write rise,
as a writer, you just know in yourself
that what is on your mind
needs to flow unabated
as a matter of necessity and destiny,
and not always as a matter of choice.

I have a sixth sense for creative people;
I have an instinct for the inspired;
I have been a member of the church of poetry
for years now, and I am its life-long disciple;
I have the greatest adoration for people
who can change the world with the power of words,
and to whom their love of language
is one of the greatest of all their desires.

I could sit with my notebook
at a table in Starbucks,
I could lay on my bed looking out the window,
I could sit on a bench in the park,
I could sit under the moonlight in the dark,
and be absolutely captivated and lost
in thought by the most incredible
and the most inspiring creation of my imagination –
as I try to interpret, convey, and convert
my thoughts into words
that perfectly capture
the constellations of my universe
into understandable verse.

When I write, it is a stream of consciousness;
when I daydream, there is never
any limit to what I can imagine;
when the rhythm of my soul takes me
and I give birth to a newborn of my own poetry,
I love the experience so much;
when the artistic animal
catches me its sights and its embrace,
there is nowhere to run…
which to me is my kind of fun!

I can always tell someone
who has seen the artistic light;
I can always understand
when someone says out-loud
that they do not know
why they are doing what they are doing –
however, in more ways than they can describe,
they just know that what they are doing
just feels right;
I can always follow the thoughts
and the emotions of someone,
and I love sharing my own
as I too spread my poetic wings and take flight;
I can always tell ‘the writer type’.

My Poem ‘The Outer Limits’

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

Ever since the first astronomers of Earth
looked up at the sky to the stars and the planets,
humanity has been asking questions of themselves
about their relevance and about just how rare
and important they are within the universe;
humanity has been searching the galaxy and beyond
for a signal from another galactic inhabitant,
and even to this day there are those
who openly proclaim that because we have not yet
made contact with another form of intelligent life
in the Milky Way that we are the superior species
to be found anywhere, and that Earth is and could only be
the only inhabited world.
When I look above, I can almost hear the call
of a fellow interstellar searcher
and the beating heart of a fellow poet of the stars
being inspired by their muse
and taken away in mind, spirit, and soul,
to their imagination outer-limit.

We here on Earth know only too well
that feeling of awe and intrigue
that we feel when we see photographs
being returned to Earth from man-made probes
of distant worlds – that we have all known about
and heard about, but which have never been seen before;
we all experience sheer breathtaking amazement
whenever something happens above us and around us
that may only happen once in a lifetime;
when we watch a rocket launch,
or when we witness the first footsteps
and impressions made by someone or something
on an unknown and undiscovered brand new land,
we all return to the memory of when we were a child
making an airplane out of folded paper
and watching it be carried on the wind, and sour;
we, I, always go ten steps beyond
when the thought of what and who could be out there,
in the dark, on their own planet, imagining us,
as we imagine them, and what just the knowledge
of each others’ existence would mean
and would do to the thoughts
and to the dreams of the others’ mind.

Every form of life is special and unique;
every planet orbiting around every star
is like the integral and unmissable
musical notes of a galactic symphony
that have their own vibration and sound to them,
that when heard playing with the rest
of the interstellar musical instruments and keys,
as well as on their own, sound nothing short of perfect;
everything that happens in space
is always a spectacle to us all here on Earth,
even if it is the sight of a fly-by by a passing comet.

Being a poet, I naturally look at life
and the universe slightly differently
to how someone else might see it –
however, I believe that everyone can see
inspiring wonders and they can be inspired
to take a trip of discovery
into an exciting new frontier,
and explore the amazing mysteries and questions
that drive us all when and if
we choose to step into the realm
of the outer limits.

My Poem ‘The White Rabbit’

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

I sometimes feel like
I am akin to the white rabbit of Wonderland;
I almost always find myself late,
because even in my mind
I am always rushing off to somewhere;
I sometimes feel like I am in an hour-glass
being slowly rained on by a constant dusting
of falling grains of sand;
I sometimes struggle to know
when to go and when to stop and wait;
as I watch time tick by,
like the hands of a clock,
I am very rarely seen standing still –
when I am writing,
when I am talking,
when I am thinking,
are the most likely of times
that you will ever see me motionless,
and even then, my muscles are on the move –
in some way, shape, or form –
and, to be honest, for me to be in any way
like a statue I would have to be ill.

Some things do take time
to fully come to fruition;
some things can happen
and must only happen in the moment;
some things that are what they are
are driven by emotion;
some things are so important to us
their effect on us is incredibly potent.

I have learned over time
that you have to follow your heart;
I have always looked for the rabbit hole
to the unknown, and ran down it at full-speed
without any thought of stopping myself, or looking back;
I have always been enamored by every sentence
that I have read that has ever ended
with a question mark;
I have always considered every opportunity
as if it were a doorway to somewhere
that is so full of inspiration and wonder
it would and will always be impossible
to ever pin-point the location
of everything there on any kind of map.

I have always believed
that there is no such thing as coincidence;
I have proof that every thing
and every person comes into your life
and is a part of your life for a reason;
I have vowed to myself to never stop
doing what I do, and to will keep going –
to keep walking through every open door,
and to keep jumping over every fence;
I have watched people leave others behind
when they feel like they have to
if they want to have the thing that they most desire –
I, however, do not give up on people
or on anything that matters to me lightly,
and if I could I would be there
when and where I am wanted and needed
for those who need me
through all the colours and shades of every season.

Anything can last forever,
if you don’t give up on it
and if you don’t forget it;
while you are looking around
and taking in life and your surroundings,
try to see the signs that you should follow,
if you want to experience
your eyes being opened wide
by a thought as amazing
and as dazzling as a bright light;
the things that may happen to you
if you choose to sometimes not worry
about all the things that could happen,
and if you learn to grasp the secret of everything:
that everything happens all at once,
and that the past, the present,
and the future are all one and the same –
and, if and when you do, that is when life
will feel even more beautiful and epic…
so, make sure you look around from time to time –
so that you may see, and perhaps choose to follow,
you own personal, life-defining and enlightening,
white rabbit.

My Poem ‘The First Impression’

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

The first impression
is always the most important;
the way that you present yourself
speaks volumes about how important
something is to you;
the first word that you speak
echoes and forever stands out;
the old saying that you can tell a lot
about someone just by watching
and noticing how someone walks in their shoes,
and what someone’s choice of footwear
can tell you about someone,
is absolutely true;
the first of anything
sets the standard for everything to follow;
the first expression can have as much impact
as a burst of light from the sun;
the first message is often forgotten –
however, if and when reread,
that same first chain of words,
at the end of everything,
always resurfaces and means the most;
the first signs, the first icons,
can imprint more meaning, more feeling,
and they can be a source of constant hope,
like the always recognizable symbol of love.

Meeting someone you love,
meeting someone you care for and adore,
meeting someone you have never met before for the first time,
meeting and greeting someone at your front door,
is one of the best things that will ever happen to you –
especially, because the more instant
and unexpected that first meeting is
it can speed up your thoughts
and your heart-rate so fast that
that first view can change you.

Love at first sight is true,
it exists, and it is not simply a myth
invented by romantics;
the first exposure to anything,
especially at a young age,
will inform a great many
of your important life-decisions;
the first reaction that you have to something
can sometimes be deceptive –
but the look that someone gives you with their eyes
can be as rhythmic as a song-lyric;
and just as everybody follows one kind
and one type of a fashion,
so too does everything grow
from that very important first impression.