depression

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

Burning Gratuities

Catastrophe

strikes – once, twice?

Thrice and out of here.

A bomb masquerading as a bowling ball;

this heavy burden of

duplicity.

In a race to get hot

the pot is calling the kettle…

“Boiling?”

“No, just lit.”

“And, half-full?”

“No, half-empty.”

Sigh.

“Okay. Thanks a lot.”

Now, stand back and watch the fireworks.

Tick, tick… broom.

Embarrassed;

fallen Ash is swept aside;

a remnant of explosive outbursts.

Burning gratuities of rage

make the face

of a clock

that time

could not change

nor cataclysm

erase.

Counting down to

dinner-time.

But, no just desserts

just yet.

Repeatedly,

primordial soup

is forcefully ingested

and teary-eyed child is

degraded.

Erupting memories;

simmer

indelible scars;

resurface.

Unfaded.

Callum Featherstone

Red Letters

Paint an imperfect picture

from a red letter’s scripture…

In blood

splattered rooms

you will find

grey, pink, claret

matters and whom

was left behind

in the catacombs

of once upon a time

in a grand Creator’s mind

foolish by design

capable of fooling you.

Paint an imperfect picture

from a red letter’s scripture…

The bills are past due

so Bill passed away

swinging by the neck

in a Navy suit of blue.

His eyes used to shine

a glint of due respect

now his eyes are scuffed

and all that shines

are his shoes.

Hanging tough.

Paint an imperfect picture

from a red letter’s scripture…

You reap what you sow – and reap what you don’t – often when you owe – cause when debt alone – is what you reap;

how many secrets can you keep?

Who holds the key

to locked lips

and promises?

Paint an imperfect picture

from a red letter’s scripture…

Currently the only way to make ends meet – at wits end – encourage me to comprehend;

how numbers on a computer screen can be the difference between

rejection and lend

poverty and wealth

livelihood and death

wake me up when it ends.

Paint an imperfect picture

from a red letter’s scripture…

Misleading

unknowing investors

Us;

to a hidden

land of milk

and honey

that is derelict,

drought ridden

and smells distinctly

sick and forbidden

because this land of death;

makes money.

Paint an imperfect picture

from a red letter’s scripture…

Imperfections

are what keeps it

made…

this deathbed of currency;

funeral pyre

of red letters

unlit

crimson spite

enveloping.

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

United Kadaver

Collective grief

makes

a corpse of this nation

each footstep impatient

on the arteries and

veins

we call streets.

We –

the beating heart

of the country;

now palpitating.

The salted sweat is

ever-radiating,

despair spilling from our tear ducts;

belief

tears us apart.

Our

zeitgeist is atrophy

rubbing shoulders

to the very bone.

Symbiosis

with a mobile phone

ringtones ring of

unholy matrimony.

This miscarrying motherland’s

hand;

unforced.

But, still kept us for viewing

in a jar

tormenting

delivering mental scars

locked down

in a green and unpleasant land.

And as the gangrene

sets in

the Hydra freshly springs to mind –

duplicitous

for;

every time

your actions prove unkind

viciousness

does arise

and two further unkind actions

affect your kin.

And this is just one

embodied state;

a United Kadaver –

sent to the

morgue

that has become this planet.

What was once

our Earth;

our good and wholesome Gaia,

that which used to inspire.

Each post-mortem

misunderstands this;

epidemic of lies

and death

by company sponsored

dagger

forged in the fiery

pits of hate.

Callum Featherstone

To be a man

In solitary dreams

i wake

the crest of understanding

waves

never reach

me

so small and unable

to reach

the stop

of their poking and prodding

hands

within my very breeches

they breach

my innards

every single time

just like they did before

when I wasn’t but a teen

only seven

and the blood

is intertwined

with every single tear

that I have intent to cry

just a pathetic little boy

that tried to become a man

smoking H and drinking cans

He could have been a man

Could have been a man.

Callum Featherstone

What the Hell

They never tell you

what it’s like when

your body gets older

but you still feel inside

the way you did at

eighteen. Impromptu

is that feeling once again

of the receding smoulder.

A fire in the belly denied

by smothered tit for tat.

You ask those questions

that cause blisters within

your mind. As the heat

steams your twisted tongue

you pour out confusion.

Their answers cause indigestion,

their falsehoods crawl your skin.

A melting of your mind meets

with a recurrence of unbelong-

ing – the age of electrocution.

Caustic cynicism is all that remains

now that the beastly brawn outwits

the worm ate brains.

The stinging scorned proudly splits

a bill with hedonism – that explains

the firmed terrain.

A drought of thinking critically, rationale and morality

created global tyrants; ruling in totality.

You have no reason to fear being sent

to hell because you live there every waking moment.

Callum Featherstone

What is ‘this’?

“If you are the big tree, let me tell you that

We are the small axe, sharp and ready

Ready to cut you down (well sharp)

To cut you down” – Bob Marley

Maybe we wouldn’t have to worry

about this dystopia or Thought Police

if we’d paid attention and weren’t in a hurry

protected our rights and thought of peace

made sure that every little boy and girl

had their freedoms unequivocally ingrained

in an uncodified constitution of the world

that wouldn’t commodify their names,

their games, their chats, their brains

wouldn’t commodify their friendships

wouldn’t commodify in exchange

for our chance to ever end;

this.

This; globalist

end of days.

This; oval disk

of human waste.

This; cashless

new society.

This; ask less

pay more, die early.

This; ‘how much

more can you take?’

This; smiling punch

you in the face.

This; ‘whatever’

disillusionment.

This; forever

can’t afford the rent.

This; take a pill

to ease the pain.

This; makes you ill

over again.

This; wants your life

to be a mess.

This; gives more strife,

more bills, more stress.

This; is worse in every single way.

This; works you til your dying day.

This; takes much

more

than pounds of flesh.

This; doesn’t need

your

excuse for less.

This; what happened

to our fledgling crop?

This happened…

We ‘the many’

never forced

‘the few’ powerful to

STOP.

Callum Featherstone

Sheltered Hell

Claustrophobia;

casting spells, anxiety obeah

feeling trapped in a shell

a gleaming pearl

trapped in a cell

of another’s designer

hell

waiting for the pool to whirl

me down

again.

The heat and the wet

make a vitriolic garnish

causing what once gleamed – jet

to now become tarnished.

Agoraphobia;

crowded house – residential dystopia

all the faces look the same

painting misery – drawing blanks

always strange and often insane

that’s what happens to your brain

when you’re trodden on like wooden planks

and spoken to just the same

you become a broken, wooden frame

a shell without a pearl

a face without a name

and when you push the system yanks

until there’s nothing left to say.

Until there’s nothing.

Nothing.

..

Callum Featherstone

Rescue

You are a pathway strait

unlike your last mistake

and mistakes are learning curves;

they aren’t your overall fate.

You have your being

but their eyes aren’t seeing

what goes on inside

of your mind as it’s fleeing.

Steady your ship

sail yourself to equip

yourself with a set

of masts they cannot rip

or strip.

Rescue yourself from the doldrums

breath fresh air into your lungs

leave the noxious and nasty

to suffocate on their own tongues.

Cause they never will know

what you have lived and do know;

they don’t deserve to encounter

what you can be

what you will be

what you will become

when you thrive and you grow.

Set your sights and show

that beauty bright

and innermost light

of your selfless glow.

Smile like the crest of a wave

and remain deep

leave those naysayers to weep

in their shallow dug graves.