Author Mark Woollacott
Selected Poems
Poetry of Love, Mysticism, and Awakening
I am a British poet, (a writer only, not a performing poet) inviting you into a world of love, spirituality, and the eternal. Poetry has always been the language my heart turns to when ordinary words fall short. It allows me to speak from a place deeper than thought, where feeling, spirit and silence meet. When I write, I'm not trying to impress or persuade — I'm simply listening for the voice beneath the noise of the world, the voice that whispers of what is eternal and unseen. For me, poetry is a way of tracing the threads of the divine through the fabric of daily life, finding beauty in the smallest moments and wonder in the vast mysteries. Poetry is the breath between worlds. It is the quiet crossing from what can be named to what can only be felt — a passage into the shimmering spaces where the soul remembers its origin. Each poem becomes a small vessel, carrying fragments of eternity, whispers of the unseen, traces of divine love that cannot be contained by ordinary speech.
The themes that call to me — spirituality, eternal love, mystical experience, beauty — are not separate things, but facets of a single jewel I have spent my life turning in my hands. They are the soft fire in the heart, the horizon that keeps receding as I walk toward it, the hush of wings in a dream. Poetry offers a space where longing can rest, where questions are as important as answers, and where love can be felt as something boundless and luminous. It is, for me, a form of prayer, a conversation between the soul and what it loves most. In poetry, I can wander there freely, unbound by time, and invite the reader to walk beside me. As a British poet writing about eternity and divine love, my work draws on mystical experience, inner contemplation, and the timelessness of love.
The poems gathered here are not explanations, but offerings — petals left on the altar of the infinite, small windows into that inner world of beauty. They are glimpses into a realm where love has no edges, where every moment is lit by something ancient and holy. If you find yourself pausing within them, I hope you will hear your own heart answering back. They are not meant to define truth, but to gesture toward it. My hope is that in reading them, you might feel a spark of recognition — an echo of your own journey toward what is sacred, timeless and beautiful.
Sunlight on a Stream of Tears
This poem is my way of giving voice to something I can’t quite hold in words — the quiet unfolding of destiny and the slow, luminous awakening to a deeper truth. It speaks from moments when life feels guided by an unseen hand, when every step, even the uncertain ones, seems to carry me toward something sacred. I wrote it from the place in me that has glimpsed the divine not as a distant power, but as the very essence of who we are. It isn't about claiming answers, but about honouring the journey — the way the soul seems to remember its path, even when the mind forgets. My hope is simply that these lines might stir that same remembrance in others.
Time acts as a witness to the joys and sorrows of the world.
Etched lightly into the earth, a moment passes so briefly:
Eventually covered by dust and slowly erased from memory.
Where am I going? Have I been here before?
Are all the things beyond myself truly real as gold?
Look only into the nothingness, it is all you will ever have.
Yet my angel sings of other ways, steering my mind to truth;
And so I choose to listen, to hear the angel's song
And remember the ancient melody that will awaken me from the dream.
I can now see hope in this world that does not breathe;
I can see only light in every face that never was;
I can see peace in a race that smiles and clashes;
I can see only one now, I can see only one.
I am aware of truth's stillness, safe in eternal joy;
Silent holy rays will bathe the old grey road.
I can breathe for everyone and see with perfect sight;
For I can see the sunlight upon the stream of tears.
Written by Mark Woollacott
1st March 2017.
Copyright © 2017 Mark Woollacott. All rights reserved.
Beyond The Walls Of The World
This poem comes from a quiet place in me that senses there is more to life than what we can touch and measure. As I move through the ordinary world — its routines, its tangible shapes — I feel a subtle current beneath it all, a spiritual dimension that is just as real, though not bound by space and time. These words are my way of opening to that presence, of letting it breathe through me. I don't claim to understand it fully, but I trust its reality, and I wish only to share that openness with whoever might read. The poem is not a declaration, but an invitation — to notice, to listen, and perhaps to remember what we’ve always known deep down.
This great heavy curtain that borders our living Earth,
Which encloses all the living and all the evolving,
Marks the greatest boundary to a beautiful eternity.
But within this rational world, filled with its distractions,
Are a populous bound by the heaviness of fate:
Where most are blind to any revelation of the spiritual,
Who function with eyes only on the self and its material needs.
Yet this curtain has hung in place since life began:
Appearing as a wall of steel to the unsympathetic mind,
But as the most delicate veil to the believer,
Who sees it for what it is, knowing he or she can step through,
Without any resistance, when the time is right to do so.
The sceptic cannot measure or examine this curtain, nor draw it aside,
Yet those that already exist beyond it can travel through at any time:
To inspire, to guide, to give hope, to heal and to comfort all.
Each moment that passes on this earth is a wonderful boon,
Where the opportunity to believe is ever a possibility,
And a welcome revelation to any awakened mind.
Appreciate the beauty of a wholesome spiritual world,
And steer your thoughts upon it, daily and with conviction;
And you will gradually become aware of this great curtain,
And sense a beauty that far exceeds the loveliness of Earth:
As it imprints a realization that life exists beyond the physical,
Where peace is found, wisdom gained and happiness is returned.
Written by Mark Woollacott
30th January 2014.
Copyright © 2014 Mark Woollacott. All rights reserved.
There Are Many Stories Within A Dream
This poem is a meditation on the very fabric of existence, spiritually and physically — an intimate journey into the mystery of how reality, time and the universe came to be — using metaphor. It moves with the quiet curiosity of one who has looked past the surface of things, seeking not just answers, but a felt understanding. In its lines, the great questions of cosmology and philosophy meet the soft light of direct experience. There is no strict boundary between self and cosmos here; instead, my words dissolve that imagined division, revealing the unbroken whole that holds it all. The poem speaks from a non-dualistic awareness, where the beginning and end, the vast and the intimate, the timeless and the fleeting, are all one movement. It is at once a contemplation and a homecoming — an expression of wonder at the infinite, and a recognition that what we search for is never apart from what we are.
Once, when we were One and awake and knew the living world,
Where no time nor sense of space was experienced,
A divine light permeated our blissful existence,
And thus our awareness was eternal and complete in God.
But within this perfect heaven a strange idea occurred,
Formless, unreal and unexpected, and yet it seemed to occur.
And it seemed as if the world had suddenly become something else,
And duality, newly formed, appeared to take the place of Oneness,
And became the throne from which a new world received its illusionary needs.
So began a dream where time and space became manifest,
Appearing as a division, its purpose to distract us from the Oneness:
Steering us from the world we had once known,
Where only love, joy and peacefulness had occupied our awareness.
Behind this dream was a controlling Mind, without true shape or form,
That evolved from the nothingness to bestow us with choices.
It produced a fear and an impression of guilt to drive us further
From that which had been wholly safe and loving,
And so the strange idea led to further divisions in time and space.
A universe appeared in the dream, formed to provide a suitable haven,
To protect us from the fear and guilt so newly laid within.
The Mind established a physical world, to separate us further from Oneness
And eventually produced bodies for us so we could walk and speak,
And think on an individual basis, and judge through strange perceptions.
The Mind formed a story: a script for every-body,
So that each body could act out its guilt and fear,
And, at the same time, unknowingly project it onto others,
In a secret arena known only to the Mind.
In these countless stories, where environments seemed to change often,
Each body grew, from a new-born infant to an ageing adult,
And our split, separated mind seemed wholly embedded
Within each body, as if each one were truly unique and special.
Alternating: a male in one story, a female in the next;
We never completely made sense of the world we found ourselves in.
In these stories were many acts and many scenes, like a theatrical play:
Each imprinted its peculiar tragedies and varied forms of love,
And appeared as a special journey, or perhaps a life steady and ordinary.
Each story kept us distracted and preoccupied with other bodies;
And thus the controlling Mind pursued its illusionary agenda
And provided all the magic that we would ever need
In order to keep the dream it made for us believable and real.
And so it continued to keep our minds wholly apart from the truth,
Dazzling us with many splendid effects, some physical and scientific,
Some appearing spiritual, religious or mythical.
Yet each one was nothing more than a fantasy, without a cause:
An illusion that was never real, as we eventually realized we had never left God.
Written by Mark Woollacott
30th December 2015.
Copyright © 2015 Mark Woollacott. All rights reserved.
The Silver Chair
"The Silver Chair" began with a dream. At 2:55 a.m. on the 16th of January, 2019, I woke with those three words in my mind. I don't know why they came, only that they felt important enough to write down. What followed was a quiet, almost otherworldly process — four short bursts of writing over the course of that early morning. Each verse seemed to arrive almost whole, as if I was receiving them rather than creating them, though I can't say from where. At times, it felt as though the voice of Yeats was close, helping to shape the words as they came into focus, like a subtle influence within me. By the time the final verse was written at 4:21 a.m., I was left with something that felt both mysterious and strangely inevitable — a poem that had come into being in its own way, and in its own time. I wrote the words down on a piece of paper. The first phase of inspired writing occurred between 2:55 a.m. and 3:10 a.m.; the second phase between 3:15 a.m. and 3:25 a.m.; the third phase between 3:30 a.m. and 3:40 a.m. and the fourth phase between 4:11 a.m. and 4:21 a.m.
Take me, my lovely, to where worlds are fair,
And thence would I venture on my winged silver chair.
Apport me now, to emerald isles bright and clear
Where there I can witness the lakes of the west.
Folk of clay dance upon the knoll, all merry and new,
Near the verdant meadow, so wet and so sweet,
Where lies the buttercup all clothed in dew.
Join me, my lovely, on my silver chair,
I will take you to places long lost, but easily found.
Save all your thoughts for the gladness to come,
For thy will shows a temperament for journeys and calm skies.
Let us glide upon the moonbeams that scintillate and glow,
Oh how charming is the spectacle, with you at my side!
Whispers come like cloud-forms, building softly on the higher plane;
Such lofty notions of worlds beyond come to us and beckon.
The chair will take us, my love, to Truth’s open door,
Where angels await to grant us boon and gifts amore.
Guide me to where I should go, for trust wings me sure in heart,
While doubt forever leaveth my mind,
As I sit glad upon the chair, so silver, as the stream.
Ride swift to all that is yonder!
Pass only the fields of ‘the left behind’,
Where legends once grew and were received well in tales.
Keep the pasture fair, as it always was,
For there is never a need to uproot ‘the natural’.
Take only of me and my winged silver chair,
As I fly across heavens and live life fair with you.
We fight for the meadow, the brook and the stream,
To keep them untarnished and ever clean.
The soil is good here if you treat it well,
Just play there, my love, just sing your glad song;
For what is pure need no more.
Come with me on the winged silver chair,
Abide in love, set motion in all things,
Away from dreams, away from the past.
Let the chair be our guide and our compass
To every present moment, happy and well;
I love thee forever, I love thee I swear.
Written by Mark Woollacott
Wednesday 16th January 2019.
Copyright © 2019 Mark Woollacott. All rights reserved.
This poem is untitled
This untitled poem was born from a quiet and unexpected moment of inspiration. Late one night, at 11:11 p.m., I felt the presence of something — or someone — gently nudging me toward words. It was as if the spirit of W. B. Yeats was close by, not in any grand or mystical way, but with a warm, patient, and good-humoured companionship. I can't explain why this influence came, or from where, but it felt kind, encouraging, and entirely poetic in nature. Knowing that something was about to be written, I reached for my notebook, switched on a small torch, and began to write. What followed was a piece shaped more like narrative prose than verse, carrying with it the quiet trace of that subtle, friendly guidance. To read more about how this poem came about, please refer to my book Visions for more information: Chapter: Phenomenon; Page 101 - The 'influence'. The verses are also included as inspired writing in my books Love Would Say, passage number 22, on page 52, and A Beautiful Reality, on page 128.
"Into the depths of holy love do I rest, certain that your train of thinking will always lead to no end but the eternal glory that finally embraces every mind without the least strain of any inner unwillingness or reserve. Into the light do I joyfully connect and breathe, as if I live anew and see my life as it was never known before and appreciate with happy gaze this unearthly brightness that hangs forever upon the grateful mind.
Into every living sense of wonder do I fully explore and measure my creative depths. In search of revelation do I seek like the happy pilgrim, who journeys because he sees the outcome already fulfilled before his very first step was ever placed. Into the everlasting do I leave the world's time behind without any trace of regret or hesitation in my mind, as I smile at the great light before me and hurry closer to its wondrous holy presence.
Await now for the tide's peaceful turn, that slowly reaches its point of stillness, before it once more commences its inevitable change of direction and starts its flow afresh. Follow its current as it begins to flow again and move off toward far reaches and holy places, where time no longer trickles by.
I am now at rest at the shore of eternity, for I have left all moods behind me and so now I am at peace. I take my step into tranquillity and follow easily my beloved guide whose holiness has led me here with many a gentle prompting. I am in a greater place found, a quieter kingdom of rest and laughter that abides by no law but one: that all minds are governed by love and all wills are equal to love's divine source.
In the world, I once sat upon my throne at the edge of a granite cliff; that lofty place, so exposed by world's storm and change. I governed nothing, but could only look upon and witness and so I never engaged with anything remotely real. Time appeared my master there, where it eroded the edge before my throne, from where I watched the gannets fly that circled off to shore. The sound of sea and wind were fresh and the elements of change were acutely embedded in time. This is the earth, that sings in its temple of change. Yet if my throne were one day to fall into the ocean I would not despair, for my heart lies safe in eternity where change cannot occur. I live forever in light, I live with you, dear love. No throne or windswept high place do I crave in aloneness any longer, for I have love as my companion and love will not let me fall."
Written by Mark Woollacott
Monday 10th September 2018.
Copyright © 2018 Mark Woollacott. All rights reserved.
Final reflections...
In the quiet spaces between heartbeats, poetry becomes a doorway. I write verses that explore the luminous meeting of love and eternity, the stillness of inner contemplation, and the awakening of the soul. My poems flow from moments of mystical experience, carrying the fragrance of inner transformation and the beauty of spiritual awakening. My writings invite you into a landscape where love becomes infinite and every breath whispers the mystery of oneness.
Order the Photographic Print
A photographic print of Mark Woollacott hiking in the mountains of Snowdonia is available to buy online at Fine Art America. Choose from a variety of print sizes, select quality fine art papers, print types (e.g. paper print, canvas print, metal print etc.), and framing options to suit your home or style.
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Author Q & A
Thank you for reading a small selection of my poems. If you have time, why not have a look at my Questions and Answers page. I cherish having an Author Q&A page on my website because it affords me an opportunity to connect with readers in a beautiful way. Through these questions and answers, I can offer you a glimpse into my journey as a writer. These questions and answers are more than just information; they're moments that have shaped not only my books but me as a person. Author Questions and Answers >>
Intellectual Property
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