My Poem ‘Ultrasonic’

The energy hit me as soon as I entered the club,
the second that I walked though the door
the sound of the music consumed and transformed me,
and as I closed my eyes I could immediately
feel my heart begin to ache and throb-
the beats of the music that filled the space
and released me from my body,
coursed through my consciousness and revealed to all the real me.

When I opened my eyes I saw everyone around me moving as one
up and down to the sonic tides, pulses of light,
and electricity being generated by the captivating DJ-
nothing else existed in that everlasting moment-
we all wanted to stay within the self-contained universe
for all eternity, to move until we could not move no more,
to stay standing and connected to each-other until night became day.

The palpable spirit of the music overcame all inhibitions,
names, identities, differences, and persuasions;
the voice that breathed phenomenal new life into the lungs
and mind of those dancing like the music was compelling them to dance,
nodding their head in-sync to the rhythm of the vibration-
everyone, including me, was literally in a trance.

The space span like a rapidly-rotating galaxy,
everyone in the club was like a shining-star-
populating, radiating, making the walls, the ceiling,
and the floor come alive and disappear,
as if they were not there;
boundaries fell, everything became spectral,
everything and everyone felt special, celestial,
like the world that we know and love
is one parallel of a universe of multi-levels.

You can’t conceive how natural and phenomenal coming together like this is.
You can’t get enough of the closeness, the gravity, the elevation that you feel-
some of us feel the need to reach above us and touch the illuminated sky,
some of us want to wrap our arms around someone,
share in every moment of euphoria
as if this was the night when we realised that you don’t need wings
to rise above and see the world for what it is-
all you need to do is forget what you think you know,
then you will feel true freedom, release, and you will fly.

The music intoxicates us to greater depths than alcohol.
The sound penetrates us and returns us to a state of being
that feels almost prenatal.
The equilibrium of rebirth and metamorphosis
that floods our minds and veins,
that emanates from our eyes and faces,
is something we can’t restrain.

The state of becoming one with each-other,
tide together through the gift and the effect of music,
is proof-positive that we all exist
as part of a as-yet unfulfilled harmonic music,
and our relationship with the world and ourselves
is universally mnemonic, symphonic, ironic.

When we are all enjoying the atmosphere of a club,
it’s music, it’s people, it’s energy,
the forces that arise in the moment,
we hear and we become a part of something unbelievable-
a music that we hear and move to that we can also feel-
a cosmic reverberation that exists beyond the ultrasonic.

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My Poem ‘The Black Swan’

I saw a black swan on the river today,
swimming in the ice-cold morning air.
Alone the black swan made its way without a care-
one of the most amazing sights I have ever seen,
the swan captured my attention
and stimulated my imagination almost immediately.
The stark contrast of its beautiful black feathers and its red beak
to the white of the surrounding snow.
As it made its way down the river
the black swan looked up at me as it passed me,
and for a second we two exchanged a gaze that stunned me-
so much so that I watched until it left my sight
and went to where I was unable to follow.
I had never seen a black swan before, but on this day of all days
I was not lost on the significance of its symbolism and meaning.
Seeing the black swan,
as I made my way to say my final goodbye to a good friend,
made me stop and think
on this personal journey of remembrance that I was taking,
that the world was trying to tell me something,
that I was going to receive a gift on this day
that would be for me and for me alone to understand,
but the consequence of that would be heart-breaking.

I had attended my friends funeral, but I hadn’t really said goodbye;
I had written a poem describing how I felt about their passing,
but I felt that I hadn’t really spoken to them as I always had;
I felt that simply attending my friends funeral service
and sharing my sorrow with their family was not enough-
in my mind, I thought that I needed to go back to their grave
and reconnect with them in some way,
so that I may hear them again,
and maybe I would stop feeling sad.

The snow covered everything in the graveyard,
but I remembered where the body of my friend now lay
without a second thought.
The wind was bitterly-cold as I stood facing the frozen Earth
above and below the now empty shell of my friend.
As I spoke to them in hushed-tones hoping that they could hear me,
because I knew that my memory was quickly fading
and that time was growing short.
After standing with my head bowed in solace and in silence
remembering everything that I could about my friend,
an image of the black swan that I had seen began to grow in my mind
until it was all that I could think about-
and then, above me, to my awe, shock, and astonishment,
I looked up and saw a black swan flying in the sky over-head,
and I fell to the ground at the sight of the black swan’s wings
outstretched like a dark angel ascending to the white-coloured clouds.
After regaining my footing,
I was fortunate to just catch the sight of the black swan
before it disappeared into the fog of the horizon-
as I did I swore that I heard my name being spoken somewhere far-away
in a whisper that I could barely hear,
but its depth of resonance was unmistakable-
like the crashing waves of an ocean.

Making my way home, the gift that I had received continued to ring in my head.
My memory of the swan that I had seen was glowing,
as if I had seen it in infrared.
I felt this feeling in my heart that my friend was still here in some way-
that their part to play in the universe was now proceeding on a different path-
that they will return to life in other forms, their essence will never be gone.
I had thought it impossible to accept the truth of my friends death,
and to try and reconcile the reason for his return to the source of all life,
until I saw the beauty, and caught the gaze, of the black swan.

My Poem ‘Language’

To me, language is the single greatest invention of all time.
To me, the ability to be able to communicate on multiple-levels,
in many great and wonderful ways, is life at its prime.

The power of language, what it can do, what it has done,
has given rise to everything on Earth-
from the creation of all life on our planet,
to the next steps in human evolution as we know it, and beyond;
language will go on forever, its journey will never end;
language is in a perpetual state of rebirth.

The reason why language will never die
is because it is always re-inventing itself-
it never stops, it never tires;
language reverberates through the air like a shockwave,
and travels at the speed of light between peoples, cultures,
instinct, and consciousness, every nanosecond of every day,
transmitting on every frequency through the atmosphere, and back again,
and down incalculable lengths of cables and wires.

Language fills our world, language built our world,
language maintains our world, and is the source
of our collective well-being.
Humanity is absolutely besotted, obsessed,
and could not live without language-
we love to find new ways of saying things
that have already been written about and said countless times;
sometimes we like things spelled-out perfectly for us
so that there is no confusion,
and at other times we like to simplify things as much as we can
by abbreviating.

Music has been heralded as the “universal language”,
because of how it makes us feel
and because of how it can communicate,
sometimes centuries after it was first written, created, sung, and played,
an expression, a feeling, a message, a moment in time,
of a musician, a singer, a song-writer, or an artist,
that has been captured to out-live and endure beyond it’s inception.
When you hear a song or a piece of music being played
again and again, over and over;
when you hear a song when you are a child
and people are still playing that same song on the radio
when you have children of your own,
you know that that song, whatever it is, is special-
it has a life-span and a longevity and a power to it
that stays and will stay with our children and their children to come
as they grow older.

Language is everything.
Language is on every billboard, on every sign,
on every TV show, on every street.
Language is the reason for every letter, for every email,
for every message, for every text, for every tweet.
Language is every face, every person,
every piece of clothing, every style.
Language is every look, every thought,
every tear, every smile.

Language is constantly evolving.
Language is not in decline, language is not dying.
Language is asking questions of itself and the world, everyday,
and it is perpetually problem-solving.
Language is the foundation of every pattern,
the needle that guides and sews the thread of every stitch.
There is nothing more amazing in the entire universe
than the magic that is language.

‘Nostra Terra (Can We Turn It Around)’

In March 2012, I had the great privilege and pride to be contacted by my friend, the amazing, world-renowned, singer, song-writer, and pretty-much one of the most beautiful and gifted people on the planet, Kirsty Hawkshaw – who you may know from her phenomenal music career, or you may know her from her incredible culinary Raw Food cooking expertise. Kirsty and I have known each-other for years as online friends on MySpace, Twitter, Facebook, and I of course have been in love with Kirsty’s voice ever since I first heard Kirsty and Tiësto’s amazing song ‘Just Be‘; but it was not until last year, when Kirsty approached me and asked me if I could offer her any assistance from a poetry standpoint on the song that she was currently writing, that Kirsty and I became potential lyrical-collaborators.

That song was ‘Nostra Terra’.

I had never, and still have never, written a song in my life, but I thought that I would give it a shot. I remember Kirsty telling me that she needed something that described “our planet, our consciousness, our connection with Mother Earth”– that brief, and Kirsty’s incredible generosity and belief in me, was all that I needed to start work on writing a new poem that may be helpful to Kirsty in her song-writing process. So I wrote something, sent it to Kirsty, and the next day I got a reply from Kirsty saying that she loved what I wrote and that she may want to use some of what I wrote in the song itself! Suffices to say, I was blown-away!

On the 14th of January, ‘Nostra Terra (Can we turn it around)’ by Kirsty Hawkshaw & One Vision was officially released to the world and the response to it already has been phenomenal! ‘Nostra Terra’ is beautiful, amazing, epic, soulful, gorgeous, and in my opinion the best song I have ever heard (but I may be biased). Truly, Kirsty’s voice and the unbelievable, uplifting, entrancing, music and beats of the song, are a thing of wonder!

You can purchase ‘Nostra Terra (Can We Turn It Around)’ right now on iTunes, on Beatport, and on Amazon.

Track list:
1. Nostra Terra (Can We Turn It Around) [Club Mix]
2. Nostra Terra (Can We Turn It Around) [Epic Mix]
3. Nostra Terra (Can We Turn It Around) [Team Bastian Remix]
4. Nostra Terra (Can We Turn It Around) [North state in the Sunrise Remix]
5. Nostra Terra (Can We Turn It Around) [BDH Remix]
6. Nostra Terra (Can We Turn It Around) [Radio Edit]
7. Nostra Terra (Can We Turn It Around) [North state in the Sunrise Edit]
8. Nostra Terra (Can We Turn It Around) [BDH Remix Edit]
9. Nostra Terra (Can We Turn It Around) [Epic Dub]
10. Nostra Terra (Can We Turn It Around) [Team Bastian Dub Remix]

The album is incredible! And I just want to take this opportunity to thank Kirsty again from the bottom of my heart for allowing me to be a part of this epic and amazing song! I will never forget this time in my life, and that is in part because of you! Thank you, Kirsty! 🙂

-Mark

My Poem ‘Fated’

How could you just throw it all away?
Just because things didn’t end up the way you wanted them to.
I know that you still miss them.
I know that you still think about them
at times of quiet and solitude throughout the day.
You fell in love with them with all your heart.
How could you have known,
would the thought have even crossed your mind,
that they were not in love with you.

The moment that you walked out you tarnished something pristine.
The moment that you left you tore-up
all the pages that you shared together,
leaving nothing but fragments of a special and treasured time
strewn on the ground and blown-away by the wind-
never to be as they were again.

If you could go back in time,
would you change anything that happened?
Even the times when you felt in the dark
as to how they felt about you?

Things are always better at the beginning.
There is always so much innocence, mystery, joy,
celebration of the familiar and the unfamiliar,
and the things that you have in common.
By the time you realise that you love someone it is already too late.
I wouldn’t have had it any other way,
and if I had to do it all again I wouldn’t change a thing.

A lot has happened. A lot has changed.
They have changed. You have changed.
There was a time when what you said to each-other meant everything,
there was a time when the possibility of being in the same room
made you feel nervous, happy, excited-
a short time together, for which you would give anything.

I know you feel guilty for ending your relationship with them.
I know you feel that she ended her relationship with you a long time ago.
I know that on more than one occasion you have tried to reach-out,
in one way or another, to tell her how you feel about her.
I know, and you know, that she would never mean to hurt you,
or anyone, in any way-
she probably cares about you, and what you have done for her,
more than you will ever know.

Just give it some time.
Just keep caring about her in your own way.
Just keep thinking about her,
and keep hoping, as you always have, that she is happy, content, loved.

I know you miss her,
but what you really miss about her is the dream of her-
the first image of her that you ever saw,
the first things that she said to you
that made you fall in love with her.

The world is a big place.
The universe is vast and complicated.
Every time you close your eyes you picture her face.
One day these words will mean something more to you,
when you’re ready.
Don’t forget all that she meant to you,
all that she will always mean to you.
The love. The smiles.
The distance. The heart-break. The end.

Everything is fated.

My Poem ‘xo’

I am in love.
You are the only one that I think of.

I can’t believe I found you.
You don’t know what I have been through.

I saw perfection the moment that I followed your footsteps.
You live on the other side of a mirror,
but how I feel about you is what truly reflects.

I had to break my own heart in-two to let my love flower
so that I could show it to you.
You gave me something a long time ago,
but you never knew.

I am so lucky, blessed, alive,
because of what you gave me.
You made me believe in hope and goodness for the first time in a while-
you were like pure white moonlight on a dark sea.

I can’t forget the beauty of your smile,
I can’t deny the tender touch of your distant kiss upon my heart.
You are the inspiration, the paintbrush, and the colour, of my art.

I feel people moving away from me;
but you just keep getting closer,
you never go anywhere I cannot see.

I look at your face, I look into your eyes, and I become lost in you.
You look back at me, and the universe feels like
it has been reborn in my chest,
and I see everything that I love about life
in everything that you say and do.
I swear that I am staring at a dark-haired Angel
when I see the sunlight shine on you from behind,
making you look even more gorgeous as you glow.

You are all that I, or anyone, could ever wish for, or ever want.
You are incredible, you are stunning;
you are summer, you are star-light;
you are ocean-breeze, you are bliss.
I want only what is best for you.
I wish our voices didn’t have to carry so far to talk to each-other.
I thank the universe for bringing us together,
so that I could say I love you
and give you the gift of my Valentine’s kiss.

My Poem ‘Saw Lady of the Subway’

On a cold February morning,
as the wind blew bitter cold
and the clouds in the sky were as white as snow
and appearing to be giving a sign to all of forewarning,
as I walked down the steps of a subway
my ears and my mind could not believe what they heard-
the music that played out and got louder as I drew nearer to the source
was entrancing, energising, beautiful- I was truly lost for words.

The subway tunnels were like a network,
branching in all directions left and right;
but the music guided me to its player,
as if each echo were a beacon of not only sound but of flashing light.

As I turned a corner, I immediately felt powerful sound-waves hit me
and reverberate through my body,
I was instantly stopped in my tracks
as I came face to face with the eclectic
and amazing musician who seemed genuinely happy to see me
and to be playing for me.

The incredible music I discovered was coming from a musical saw,
and it was being played by a woman who I will never forget
and I will always remember her name:
Natalia Paruz, the “Saw Lady”,
whose music was and is unlike anything else I have ever heard,
and the joy on her face told me that
she was doing what she loved and what she loves is playing.

I don’t know what she was playing for me,
for all I know it could have been a completely new and original creation
that she was composing as she played;
it didn’t matter,
what this incredibly-gifted woman was playing
as she sat looking up at me was magic in every way.

I don’t know for how long I stood watching, listening, imagining;
but I suddenly became distracted
when I noticed that other passers-by were approaching.
As always, I remembered that I had somewhere to be.
Still entranced by the woman’s music,
and wanting very much to repay her for blessing me with her gift,
I took out five dollars from my pocket-
all the money that I had on me at the time-
and I put it into the gold buckect in front of her,
and I again saw her amazing smile as I watched her face lift.

Not long after leaving the subway,
I sat looking out of the window of a coffee shop at the rest of the world
that was now being bathed in bright sunshine,
as I reflected on the woman, her saw, and on her music.
I was still overcome by the experience of meeting the musician in the subway-
even though it had only been for a short amount of time,
it was unbelievably-meaningful and beautiful-
I can find no other word, there is simply no other way
that I can find to describe her, her music,
and the way that her music made me feel,
and continues to make me feel, without using the word epic!

I hope the subway continues to echo
the beautiful voice of the saw player forever.
I hope that even when she is not there
she is there in people’s mind and heart who have heard her play.
I hope people will never stop being intrigued and ensorcelled by her.
I hope the entire world will one day be blessed
to hear the beautiful symphony of the saw lady of the subway.

Check out Natalia “Saw Lady” Paruz’s amazing and beautiful music
by checking out her website www.SawLady.com, follow her on twitter
@SawLady, or perhaps you may be lucky enough to hear Natalia’s
beautiful saw music in person as she plays on the New York City subway.

My Poem ‘Morphology’

My thoughts, my poetry, my life,
is so precious to me.
When I think of something,
when something completely random and unprovoked
pops into my head;
when I pick up my pen
and I write down something that inspires me for some reason,
even if it is a single word,
I can’t tell you how content I feel;
when something as complicated and nuanced as a thought
becomes real because ity can now be seen, spoken, and read.

I wrote my first poem
because I wanted to tell someone that I loved them.
It was the best feeling in the world
when the words first started to come to me in my hour of need
and began flowing from me to the empty page.
The time that I spent writing that first expression of my feelings
for someone who I didn’t know, other than that I loved them,
was, and still remains, one of the most awe-inspiring, fulfilling,
incredible, and magic moments, of my life.
The words just flowed so easily,
like a stream of pure inspiration and love-
and since then I have been in love with writing and expressing
thoughts, dreams, feelings, memories, in all ways and words.
Sharing the essence of something,
using the limited conduit of words and language
to impress upon someone what remains to be imagined,
relived, interpreted, pondered on and about, questioned,
in the same way that you ask yourself and others for days afterwards
how a magician was able to accomplish their spell-binding illusion.

Words are magic. Writers are wizards.
Most people don’t remember what they said, when, or why,
but a writer can never forget-
it is in their nature to tell the world stories of the greatest depths,
and of the most soaring of heights.
It is in a witer’s DNA to create a world
that is of its own space and for its own time,
but a writer strives to be enduring, to live forever,
to write an eternal epitaph that continuously makes people think
and re-read what has been written and read,
and changing the way that they imagine the words
coming to life in their head.

You can’t capture everything in words,
in pictures, or in music, alone;
but with the gift of memory, connection, curiosity,
and an undying need to never let even the smallest of insights of life
from falling through our fingers,
we leave great artifacts for future generations,
scattered like pieces of a vast mosaic,
that to be fully-understood they need to be read, seen, and heard,
as one, and together.