death

Callum Featherstone

Fantasies of “soundly asleep“

If I dissolved the universe

for a cup of joy,

or, a sip of worth,

would your own thirst; desert, destroy?

Waive away wet debtor’s curse?

If I had wings; angelic and divine,

to float across

this great divide,

would the final approach be a gainful loss?

Pinion clipped and cropped;

by fortune’s perennial pain inside.

If I weaved you fabric journeys

from my textile dreams,

could you knit me back together?

Fix these broken seams?

If those silk and satin sojourns

of vivid;

reds, blues, yellows, greens,

became moth eaten

by their endeavour,

or, no longer serene,

could you fill the gaps

of what goes in between?

Or, would you crumble and crack,

like my fantasies of “soundly asleep”?

Living through a nightmare’s lens;

of perpetual black,

soundtrack; my innermost screams.

Callum Featherstone

Babylonian Cheeks

Cheesy moon at midnight pings

it’s beams down

upon a colourful commonplace town

pavement shimmering with blood and teeth

policemen oinking hearty.

Slipping

upon ripe banana skin

the fall – opens the flesh

fracturing bone

but, also, opening minds

coincidentally

courage

could never before

see our age

unified and advantageous.

– black and yellow meets red and white –

A wasp with great insight stings

a shrieking clown

his big lipstick smile made into a deathly frown

pass the parcel and the EpiPen, please,

at a child’s birthday party.

Foraging the dark arts

bold and free; golden,

exiting the mental metal cage

with toughened knuckles

and white-hot sharpened senses

ready to redden

Babylonian cheeks

angrily

in a manner

most outrageous.

Callum Featherstone

Pontoon

Adrenaline shots,

supersonic; glum superstitions,

reverberating – hot

sweating bullets inside a Tommy gun

firing dumb decisions.

Blurred memories,

smudged names, smeared faces.

Obscurity; a putrid mask,

masquerading, rot-

ting insides, sordid capers.

Sunken expressions – unbothered,

bleeding into a stony face;

red rock inhales dusty space;

coffin dodger,

deprived of breath, being distress, making sense? more or less?

Eyebrows cliffhang disgraced.

Loss and win

a holy sin.

These fat nothings

are wholly thin.

Callum Featherstone

Thirty-three.

Misfortune favoured

by a coward

gets emboldened by

imagined

acts of bravery,

paralleling,

when freedom is

attributed, scoured

then soldered, wry,

universally enshackled,

to the liberty of slavery.

A leaden head

of melancholy

wearing

suffering’s shawl

of crusty grime

became

a body of water’s

shopping trolley,

disappearing,

in that shoal

of rusting time.

Castigating memories

lie deeply

and contorted,

misshapen

inside that meshy box.

Untrustworthy,

this hill of discontent,

rising steeply;

geography unreported,

as the corpse’s lips;

kissed the fleshy rocks.

Callum Featherstone

Not for the faint-hearted

Life is not

for the faint-hearted

just ask

those dearly departed –

they know all too well

that the water of life

when drunk

can buffet and swell

make a storm

of a stomach

that was lead-lined

as though

forged in the fiery

bowels of hell.

Life is not

for the faint-hearted,

it never stops

or gets restarted,

whether you begged

for

a

slower

pace

or a race that

wasn’t three legged;

your trips;

over and abroad,

your falls;

flat on your face

and in love,

will be packed,

bandaged and

suit-cased;

every act

in mind, at hand

held in a Brahman grip.

Life is not

for the faint-hearted

because it’s

simply; unrelenting –

to be alive

is to be martyred

and to survive

without resenting

takes the truest

of heart;

no matter where

you started

or where you end up

once departed.

Callum Featherstone

Tenebrous Crow

“You haven’t done anything with your life.”

grasping once more

at bedecked self-worth

but the grip

slips

oil slicks

betwixt

mental palm and moral fingertips;

should i show my hand?

stick or twist?

“What is wrong with you?”

dark matter

is my only ally

when faced with terror

because

i can’t do anything else

can i?

hollow laughter

leaves enough space

to crawl inside and wear;

a straitjacket of cajolery

sad eyes

“You could have done so much better.”

this tenebrous crow

a constant reminder

cawing – slow

perched atop

my shoulder

peering deep into my soul;

cavernous hole

to cavernous hole

“Such a waste.”

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.

Callum Featherstone

To be understood

If within your lifetime

you can use a clock, digit or a hand

to count this life’s time

objectively

when you truly understand…

You haven’t lived,

only breathed.

To live racily in life’s slower moments

is a prize that is totally unrivalled;

Neigh-sayers. Those jockeying opponents

are trampled

under hoof, when you ride unbridled.

In the future there will be others

passing eyes over; your words,

your offspring, your pictures, your lovers.

Voyeurism

through the abstract lens of the absurd.

In the cave of your existence

lives your depths, your thoughts, your mud

a gift of solitary, temporary presence

that is you.

And, what isn’t;

to be understood.

Callum Featherstone

Scattered Scions

And as that outward blowing breath

scatters floating seeds of dandelions

my thoughts of birth and life and death

coalesce among the scattered scions.

For what is now has always been

and will return from future passing –

the sight of what remains, unseen;

your loss – not lost – but everlasting.

This life has now come to a close

and we reminisce on all your giving

a beacon bright bursts through morose

your shining light that lifts our living.

As we send you on your next new journey

we cherish those fond memories

we take a clutch and grasp them firmly

where you live on; in our reveries.

Callum Featherstone

Death & Taxes

Death and taxes

are for certain –

you spend your life

for the final curtain.

So, what does it matter –

what is the point?

Tiny feet?

The pitter patter?

Success? Career?

Trophy wife?

Or, is there more

than meets the eye?

Burnt candle wax is

time passed by.

And passers by

you learn their faces

on commutes

littered with

sojourned strangers.

Just like the streets

you learn to tread,

learn to steer clear

of some instead.

A forever question

of take and give

of peace and war

of love and hate

of is there more?

Wipe the slate.

Clean the floor.

Swallow a hard pill

for indigestion.

Make your mind

up what you want!

They cannot find

the knowledge fount.

When all is said

and all is done,

when blue is red

and cruel is kind,

you’ll search the times

⁃ a memorial quest

and smile sublime

(once taxed to death)

at not need or want

fulfilled at behest.

But, of those you loved

and those who loved

loving you the best.