creative writing

Callum Featherstone

The lamb and the fox

All the sheep have been pacified;
penned in, pinned down, passed out,
as their coats are roughly shorn.
The wool is pulled over; passive eyes,
skewing views, from amassing doubt,
preventing a herd from being warned.

The foxes’ cunning; salivates,
at the very thought of consuming;
a lamb, without a wary flock.
A sly, auld plan, to isolate,
with shorn coat, ‘put on’; for grooming,
makes a veiled ovine, of the fox.

Though the lamb, naively trusts,
this shape-shifting, deceptive, con,
there’s an unsettled feeling within,
an inkling, a notion, that revolts, disgusts,
whenever this Reynard, speaks upon,
their analogy, and, how they’re akin.

The fox, lured the lamb, into the woods,
the Merino, extended fox’s journey,
ridiculing Reynard’s valor; lost,
across the road the yearling trudged,
being followed; by crushing mercy,
as, crimson lorry wheel, and, sheepish precocity,
had alas, finally, outfoxed the fox.

Callum Featherstone

Step into the Light

To stand. In the shadows.
Of greater men
-talities;
opaquely.
Unbeknownst of the burden.
Carried; within a silhouette;
of gleaned knowledge.

Dusky, sagely tonnage,
makes cerebra; camel-shaped. Combusting broken, humpy backs.
Ignited; under straw, sewn, skins.
By matchsticks, of sparked duress.

A fire then, lifts, in a burning rage,
courtesy of, camel’s corpse;
showing; Death, is only the beginning; of enlightenment.
And, from; great tribulation, great pain, great loss. Cometh; infinite wisdom.

The miles travelled, within a, fleshed vessel, are;
a measure of;
insignificance…
Within; the Creator’s multiverse.
Just as, the bacterium’s rotating filament is;
unnoticeable, trivial, paltry,
to mankind’s eye.

A soul has no need to walk,
only, to be, an impetus,
for, the light, or, the dark.
A journey to the realms of infinity, beckons.
And, a destination;
unknowingly preordained.
Leaving; an unbeaten path; of universal footprints.

Callum Featherstone

Mass Hysteria

Listening

to car tyres screech

on dust encrusted

tarmacadam;

gristle’s twin.

A street pastor’s speech

from pavement pulpit

as Eves and Adams

grimace within.

Mysterious

one-sided telephone

conversations – brush the air;

painting; polyglottal prisoners.

History is

forever rewritten – prone

to vacating…

…forgetting it was even there.

St. Folly’s got new parishioners;

Mass Hysteria.

Orthodontic

is the undercurrent;

sautéed commuter,

parboiled carriage.

Neurotic

masticating servants

enslaved inside computers;

cyber-cabbage

crunched caustic.

Over the nest, free;

Cuckoo-faced;

One flew. Pidgins

peck at plastic cups

with a hope to digest

commerce.

Cardiac arrests meet

fate-laced

rued derision.

Plastic and corrupt:

un-laminated life we lament

in a dot-com hearse.

Overtly oppressed, we

praise avarice and fame;

and our new religion

of Selfishness,

teaches us to self-destruct.