6th Nov 20226th Nov 2022 Callum Featherstone

Icarus

Do not bank on a lifesaver

Coming second, first or third

As tall and looming cabers

Scrape skies – hurried and absurd.

Tossed alongside shining sabre

Toothed-Tiger looking herds

They are timid after taming.

And self-righteous bees and birds

Practice surreptitious-slut-shaming

In a world of wizened words

Reduced fruitfully like raisins.

The acorn may be small

But it’s endeavour grows so mighty

From it’s branches to it’s trunk.

And the flock’s morning call

Along with wings so fit and flighty

Launch from their wooden bunk.

Just as Icarus looked down on all

Mankind’s eyes are blinded brightly

By a couping Parliament; whose ship has sunk

To a depth that Devils dare to fall

Which constricts forever tightly.

And makes – a fake of the monk.

4th Nov 2022 Callum Featherstone

Dove of Peace

From a room inside your mind

Never mind the lack of room

As the room you hope to find

On the inside of your head.

Because outside that vital place

Is without you, no longer vital

Because within yourself is grace

And outwardly your wings to spread.

Misunderstood so lately

And often only by yourself

But to others matters greatly

Through your justness dearly held.

You put your trust in others

And they only let you down

But you rode the lonely buffers

Without a grimace or a frown.

And you stand before the world

Knowing your true self post-defame

And you tamed the downward spiral, swirl

Understood your self and name.

Callum – dove of peace

Peaceful dove that hopes to give

Enough at least to teach

How understanding helps us live.

3rd Nov 2022 Callum Featherstone

The cost of living

As the final autumn leaves

Blanket the pavement beneath my feet

I’m reminded of tears of grief

Falling from hungry children’s cheeks.

In the guise of a vulture

Autumn austerity circles overhead

Eviscerates community and culture

Dining on poverty-stricken dead.

They call it a cost of living crisis

But when you take more than you’re giving

That’s a loss of giving crisis

And a sin there’s no forgiving.

11th Oct 2022 Callum Featherstone

Sweet Dreams

You are nothing.

You are everything.

You are magic in a box high up on a hill overlooking the universe.

A box which is opened every time that you sleep.

Revelations decoded as the lid is lifted.

Sweet dreams.

Memories casting spells from the spirit-world which transport you throughout space and time.

Future presenting past – transversing as one across existence.

Immortality isn’t hard to imagine when you dream rather than think.

Your flesh will turn to dust and travel on the wings of your essence with reverie as captain.

Flying metaphysically.

4th Oct 202223rd Sep 2023 Callum Featherstone

Masquerade

You look in the mirror

And see

See too much

See their mistreatment

See your failures

See it all but don’t want to.

You look in the mirror

You like it for once

And then you feel

Shame for being vain

Shame for thinking about you

Shame for even thinking. Just

Shame.

When smashing the mirror –

the smithereens –

make a realisation –

all of it was a façade =

a masquerade in glass.

Because the broken pieces

Make a broken person and

Broken people can only dream of being whole.

25th Sep 202225th Sep 2022 Callum Featherstone

Nature versus Torture

The natural landscape is an elderly, insightful shaman.

Each rugged ridged mountain top, swell within the ocean, jagged nettle, cracked tree stump and dancing desert is a wisdom filled wrinkle, thought or expression.

The ritual undertaken by nature combines meticulous process, indefinite time and arduous repetitions. Yet, the arrogance of the human race – the young pretender – mistakenly and pompously believes to know better than nature.

If you really take a minute and think about what our planet is telling us then you would realise what it’s relationship with us has turned into.

That of a hero toward a villain.

It’s only option left is to destroy us before we harm our hero and it’s universe any further. Rising sea levels, rising world temperatures, natural disasters, wildlife extinctions and crop failures… (the list goes on) all point to one thing;

the planet must extinguish that which destroys it.

It’s enemy.

Us.

Unless, of course, this youthful pretender learns from it’s hero…

Learns that process, time and repetition are valuable within nature. Learns that nature, in turn, is valuable. Learns that nature can live without humanity but humanity cannot live without nature.

And, most importantly, learns that although we foolishly teach one another that it is never too late to change, it is too late for us to change the permanent damage and atrocities we have caused to our hero, our planet, our Earth.

However, there is still a chance to rectify further damage; if we care for nature the way nature cares for us. And, our every morsel of being.

Don’t be a fool or young pretender.

Be a hero.

Be nature.