poetry

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.

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.

Callum Featherstone

A sinking feeling

The ever swelling sea

Is a discomfort blanket sloshing

Whispers woe by telling me,

“Innocent bodies will need washing.”

The rain clouds dark and dusky

Frown upon each town and city

With a thunderous tone so husky

Pitter patter has turned to pity.

Breaking banks without a penny

Snaking slalom; this rising river

Floods the hearts and souls of many

Destructive venom is delivered.

Questions for those with plenty…

Your thirst is quenched –

What remains?

A glass half full?

Or just empty?

As loss asphyxiates the gains.

Callum Featherstone

Freedom’s Death

“The Queen is dead.”

She’s eulogised

but nobody mourned our freedom

passing

into hands of tyrannical dread.

Subjugation disguised,

whilst liberty shaped tear drops fall on and on.

Everlasting…

Another lost lesson on

empirical oppression.

Callum Featherstone

Myope

A vision:

Telecommunication from beyond the subconscious.

A message so clear it’s seen as obnoxious.

And as vivid in the mind as a car crash collision.

A warning:

Coalescing deep down within your psyche.

Killing love with a spike through Aphrodite.

On a tempestuous December morning.

Mud in the eyes of a colourless scene.

Blood on the thighs of a motherless dream.

But, still you refuse to see.

Callum Featherstone

Juxtaposition

The

Ritual

Is ever present

Ever lasting in the mind

Ever smiling like a moon’s curled crescent.

Un-

Hallowed ground

Cause once true belief

In a weary wanderer

Stolen by evening shadow thief.

Death

A fixture

Rivalled by birth’s goal

One in forty trillion

Odds favour few swimmers in a shoal.

Life’s

Scriptura

Stem from the seedling

Of a tree which reaches up

And grasps all six senses of feeling.

Callum Featherstone

Greedy guts

A glimmer

A memory of a memory

The flash of a camera bulb

As the anorexic chance gets slimmer.

Forgotten

Yesterday’s news is buried treasure

And X barks the dog

And the dog eats itself; rotten.

Avarice

Is devouring a banquet feast

Set out in front of a rough sleeper

Too famished to throw a fist.

Cupidity

Hunting with arrows for more

Material or maniacal power prêt à manger

Sustained solely by stupidity.

Callum Featherstone

Requiem

Remembering; slumber.

A forgotten number.

The subtraction

of dreamy interaction.

An ever-falling bungee jumper.

Remembering; rest.

De-stress? Distressed.

Unanswered calls

by sunken eyeballs.

To close their quest.

Remembering; peace

Of mind. At ease.

Stood at attention

for every mention

of failure to sleep.

Remembering; dreams.

Coins in a fountain gleam.

Now each and every

are but a memory.

Copper tears that stream.

Callum Featherstone

Blue sky thinking

Cool breeze

Eases the heat

Smiling sunshine’s

Caress is sublime

From head to feet.

Hopeful faces

Content, courageous

Sweet chitter chatter

Feet pitter patter

On pavement, in places.

A new beginning

Each day is bringing

Future plans

Are grasped in hands

And seized for winning.

Spirit grows not shrinking

Heart blooms not sinking

Exhilarating azure

Makes a dark mind pure

By it’s blue sky thinking.

Callum Featherstone

Shock; Horror

Power down

But you never have chance to

Power down

Government changing hands too

Power down

It’s in their plans to

Power;

Us down

To push policy plans through.

Lightbulb

When you finally realise the state

Lightbulb

Ideas falling into place

Lightbulb

Won’t stay on in a darkened space

Lightbulb;

Dimming

Is our struggle and our fate.

Shock

Charge from a volt

Shock

Bank charge is your own fault

Shock

Electri-City company cult

Shock;

Horror

Cost of living insult.