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To whom do you turn to
when you have no place left to go?
Where do you go when you believe
that you are someone that no one would wish to know?
Sometimes, through no fault of our own,
our world can feel like it is spinning out of our control
while we stand at its centre looking for an answer to the question:
where do I go from here?
Sometimes it can feel like a cloud has descended and obscured everything:
life, the sun in the sky,
and it can even make you feel as if you are destined to live in fear.
As with most things that are associated with the cloud of chaos,
we begin to feel like there is no way back-
like there is no way but down;
however, what some people forget-
what sustained me through my own journey of life, death,
rediscovery, light, destiny, and redemption-
is the reality that beyond and far above the clouds that come together
and rain down upon us
there is a dark sky with a billion shining fire-diamonds
that will be there for all our days and will always give us the answer
that we need to our most heart-felt and overwhelming confession;
and there is no closer fire-diamond, no greater teacher,
and sustainer of optimism and life in our solar system than the sun-
and it is that star that has always kept me from coming undone.
There was one day, and one night,
when the hope in my heart and the optimism in my eyes
momentarily left me- alone in the dark,
desperately searching for something to save me, to sustain me-
for an instant, I believed that all the universe’s resources
had been depleted,
I believed that I was standing on the bed of a long-since dried-up,
desserted sea.
And then a powerful vision of beautiful blinding light opened my eyes again,
traveled down my optic nerve all the way to my brain,
and like an angel of truth vanquishing a demon of doubt and details
with but the flap of their wings,
I was now surrounded by stars in every direction
as if I were now the decider, the visionary,
the puppet-master of infinite possibility
with me holding my own life’s strings.
What has happened to me was meant to happen,
all that I have experienced was meant to be;
what I have seen, what I have been shown-
I was meant to think about,
I was meant to dream about,
I was meant to see.
There is a star in my sky that is unlike any other star,
that is always there to shine their light and their inspiration on me-
a star that although they are so distant from my orbit
I still feel a connection to them,
and I could not live if it were not for the gift of their luminosity;
a star in my sky that appeared one day,
and since then hasn’t left my sight,
and to whom I will always be a follower, a worshipper, and a devotee-
because they are who keeps my world turning,
they are the star that saved me.
From light to flame;
from fire to torch;
from the child that dreams of the future
while staring up at the stars from their porch;
to the born competitor who wakes up every morning,
striving to do better than they did before,
who will be flying their flag on their chest
in the Olympic games, and with the eyes of the world
they will watch as a beacon of hope for all will soar.
The beacon will light the entire Earth when it is ignited,
and, for a short-time, everyone on Earth will,
in our own way, come together in our support for another-
who dreams of nothing greater than to see
the people of the world be united.
Expectations will leap;
heart-rates will jump;
the human machine will be witnessed, admired, and pushed to its peak;
emotions will be up and down like a roller-coaster-
and in triumph we will all feel the awesome ecstasy
that comes with every fist-pump.
We will all celebrate,
and we will all commiserate;
we will all live with heart and mind and belief,
united together like never before in something
that will reverberate, inspire, and inform,
the lives, the people, and the imagination,
and keep alight the fire of hope for everyone forever-
it is what has been carried in the hearts of many
since our ancestors first step,
it is what has driven every athlete, believer,
dreamer of a better world- whomever, whenever, wherever.
We can all do wonderful things;
what we have all achieved up until now is but the start;
how far we look to the horizon
is a measure of what the future will bring-
but what matters the most in life
is not what you get when you reach the finish-line,
it is what you achieve when you choose to take part.
The world is silent all around me, as am I-
in the evening air, I sit in the sunshine
marvelling at my surroundings,
indiferent at everything other than where I am,
as I allow the minutes to pass me by.
All the troubles of life and the world
seem galaxies away to me at this moment-
I am happy, I am warm, I am content.
A silent breeze, the touch of a beautiful spirit
embraces me delicately as it glides across my face.
I close my eyes, because the intensity of my emotions
become almost too much for me to bare-
all doubts of mine are washed away,
never to be dwelled upon again,
gone without a trace.
I am entranced and encapsulated by this perfect summer sunset-
my mind and my entire body feels alive
and burning an energy of the intensity
that makes me believe that I am living within a fleeting,
beautiful, moment for the entire world
that no one will ever forget.
I imagine a perfect instance
when every face of everyone, young and old,
raise their head, look up at an infinite sunset,
and for only a few seconds, release their pains
and imagine their most powerful dreams,
as if they were to have already come true-
then look around them, and at a reflection of themselves,
and feel better than they ever have done,
and know something about them and about the world
that they never knew.
If every day were to begin how it ended,
we would all go through our day
appreciating the moments of peace that we are blessed with-
even those that can be found within the maelstrom of chaos;
I am lucky to be able to know
and to be able to recognise such moments when they come,
and live within them for a short time
as if they were for a life-time-
and it is to them that I look forward to,
and within them I find the greatest solace.
A dandelion head bobbing in the breeze-
a common sight to those who regularly venture-out into nature,
and the appearance of which, I have to say, always puts me at ease-
is incredibly inspiring to me;
because, even though it is small in stature,
it reminds me of something greater.
Looking at the head of a dandelion, to me,
is like looking at a physical capture of the spark, the seed,
the beginning and the evolution of the universe;
looking at a dandelion, and holding a head in my hands,
evokes a sense of the delicacy of life on Earth, and beyond-
on our planet, in our seas, in the skies of distant planets,
in the constant creation and destruction of distant lands.
When you look at a dandelion,
you would think that you are looking at an explosion
that has been frozen in time-
that is because you are,
and to me that is what is the most sublime.
Dandelions- like galaxies, maybe even universes-
come in many different stages and sizes,
and within their biology dandelions have many beneficial,
necessary, and life-sustaining, surprises.
When you see the seeds of a dandelion dispersing
and being blown into the wind-
the sight and the spectacle is beautiful to see,
but witnessing it happen can also make your heart sink;
however that is the universe in the smallest
and in the most simplest of examples:
think of the universe as a dandelion in a field
and you will understand that what we see,
and what we believe we know about life,
are nothing but insights, spoilers, and samples.
A dandelion, in all its forms, is an amazing sight,
and its seeds are a reminder to me that creation goes on
like the stars of the night sky-
expanding outwards, and never going in reverse-
that is why I believe that if we are looking to call the cosmos a name,
we should seriously consider calling all of creation
“The Dandelion Universe”.
It must have been something that I read;
it must have been something that I saw, or heard;
it must have been something that someone said;
it must have been something in the colour,
or in the sound of a word.
One minute I am staring at the vibrant red cover of a book,
and then, the next thing that I know, an entire hour has passed-
I am in shock, as if I have been hit by a truck.
I felt like I had been newly thawed-out
after having been frozen in time-
I cannot account for anything that happened in that lost hour;
however, everywhere that I looked now,
everything of the colour red instantly jumped out at me,
more so than before, as if it were by design.
Buses, telephone boxes, post boxes, the Union Flags red crosses-
everywhere that I went, every shade of red was in sight and in my head:
from the crimson curls of a beautiful woman’s hair,
to the attention-seeking red light at some traffic lights
telling me to stop up-ahead.
Cars, clothing, flowers, insects-
a Porsche racing passed me; a man wearing a British Heart foundation t-shirt;
the roses in someone’s garden; the ladybird that landed on my nose-
everything that could be red was red,
from the largest to the smallest of things and objects.
I do not know what was so special about the day,
nor why red of all the colours of the rainbow
chose to brighten the colour of my blood for those few hours-
maybe I looked too close at the pictures of Venus’ transit across the sun,
or maybe my mind needed that gift of a powerful colour
to make me forget about the grey clouds and the showers.
I am sure that I once read that there are some people
who believe that the universe is colour-coded;
I personally do not know for sure, but I do believe
that colour can compel us, on occasion, to see, feel,
and act in a certain way- like the tightening, or the loosening, of a thread-
that is what happened to me:
one moment I am seeing stars,
and the next I am seeing red.
The universe spins, and then stops in-place-
like the tumbler of a lock,
the correct key and combination has been found
to be able to break the seal and the silence
and see what is behind the door that we call space.
Space has no end, the universe goes on unimpeded-
they are the eternal example of knowing the answer to something,
but not knowing the question that preceded.
Just as the Human face is capable of conveying
an endless array of expressions and emotions,
the face of the universe has its own limitless,
constantly evolving and changing, spectacle-
that is but one layer:
the translucent skin of its covering,
the surface level of its oceans.
Most of the time, to us, the universe wears its “poker-face”-
that is because we see most of it from so far away
that it almost looks as if it were occurring in still-life;
but the closer that you get the more detail that you see,
and the more it tells you about itself,
and the undiscovered facets and wonders that are rife.
The skin of the universe has a pigment to it
the colour of which we have yet to see or dream of.
At this point, we are only familiar with the colours of the spectrum;
but there exists more colour within the atom of a sun
than you could ever see in a rainbow in the sky above.
Appearance isn’t everything.
What you think you are seeing is rarely reality.
If you were an omnipotent god, who went by the name of “Hindsight”,
you would know that in the gaps between moments
there is so much more to see.
Expressions are an insight into something or someone’s character,
but they cannot tell you the whole story of the face alone-
we need to know more about what is happening underneath and inside
before the ultimate truth can be known.
Every face was once new and young
and unmarked by the weather of existence,
but over time every face changes-
so too has the universe’-
in fact, you could probably say that it is life’s universal profession:
and that, to me, is the example of the eternal expression.
If you are reading this,
then you are like me-
when we see something that interests us and intrigues us
we don’t stop trying to open a lock
until we find the right key.
If you are reading this,
then you know that everyone share’s a connection with each-other,
we always have, but that link is easier to prove and see
now, in the 21st Century,
because of the gift of modern-day technology.
If you are reading this,
then you are an example of my favourite person-
you are somebody who looks for something or someone
to take you away from what you know, for a short-time,
and to brighten your day-
like a hint of blue-sky on a cloudy day,
or a sudden, stunning, burst of light from the sun.
If you are reading this,
then please take this poem with you wherever you go-
it doesn’t have to be in your pocket,
it can simply be a thought that stays in your imagination-
like a kiss:
poetry can be as simple as a smile,
or as complex as a look that leads you to bliss-
all things are possible to you,
if you are reading this.
Please check out my book of poems ‘Poet of the Sphere‘ on Amazon.co.uk: http://amzn.to/ZTLOW2
Thank you! 🙂
-Mark
The Life, the Light, the Tears, of the Poet of the Sphere 