contemplation

Callum Featherstone

Gules, argent and azure

Gules, argent and azure;

Is it really worth fighting for?

A folded flag on your coffin door;

Is it really worth dying for?

If you took the troops & civilians

Who were murdered by war

They’d measure in millions

They rest in peace?! Or at all?!

Cause the peaces don’t match

And the peace is a puzzle

War’s an itch you can’t scratch

A rabid dog you can’t muzzle

They’re inextricably linked

Dead civilian, dead soldier

Both should be extinct

But grow older and older

And younger and younger

There’s no ageism in bloodshed

But the greedy warmonger

Sees £ signs coloured blood-red

War is a game of power

99 percent of us lose in

Don’t choose graveside flowers

Cannon fodder’s not for chews-ing

Gules, argent and azure;

Is it really worth fighting for?

A folded flag on your coffin door;

Is it really worth dying for?

Callum Featherstone

Remember the Peace

On Armistice Day I’ll ask of you this

With the poppy you’ll wear

To commemorate the long list

Of young men dead – with care.

Of those we have mourned

Yearly, since nineteen-forty-five

Other pieces of Peace we have scorned

Saving countless peoples lives.

War in proximity that always relates

Is that Troubled area over the strait.

What else could we do? Celebrate?

A peace process since nineteen-ninety-eight.

And there is a list over there

Long and left without.

No clover? Nor poppy? Or something altogether more fair.

Still, Peace worth remembering without a doubt.

So when you wear a poppy.

To remember.

Or choose not to.

To remember.

Try to remember.

Those slain and lost.

In the bitterness of November.

Remember the Peace and what it cost.

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.

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.

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

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

Inevitability

The ever impending doom that is death lingers over us on a daily basis. We are reminded constantly of what it is to be human, and, what it is to be mortal, despite our best efforts to duck, dodge and dive away from the ageing process. Whether it be an early, mid or late life crisis, they all boil down to the same sediment and sentiment.

That we are born and in doing so we must eventually die.

And when you really think about it; the futility of life that is, it is deeply frightening.

At one point or another we will all experience this thought:

“I am just a grain of sand in an ever expanding universe that will have zero impact on history whatsoever. I will be forgotten just the same as everyone who has ever lived, and everyone whoever will live.”

And this is totally normal. Terrifying, but normal.

Most people combat these negative feelings through distraction. This is a good idea seeing as the feeling of insignificance is incredibly unpleasant.

Inevitably distraction is a key part of what it is to be human.

Equally, so is mortality.

The irony being that a distraction from the inevitable only brings that inevitability closer towards you.

I would argue that it is always better to embrace the inevitable.

Now don’t get me wrong. It would be unwise to ruminate on the fragility of existence constantly because ultimately this would cause strong feelings of depression and/or anxiety. I do, however, believe that it is good to come to terms with your fate. In doing so you will defeat fear itself and unlock your true potential to live.

My very simple advice would be as follows;

Live in the moment rather than the past.

Seize the day rather than worry about the future.

Remember that life is futile but you don’t have to be.

Die living. Don’t live dying.

Ultimately the chance of you being created is around 1 in 400 trillion. So, why waste it?

Death is inevitable. Life, however, is not.