evil

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

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

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

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.

Callum Featherstone

Empty stomach and larder

You can’t un-see

Once you’ve cut the red tape

You remain unfree

Shackled thoughts won’t escape.

When it doesn’t make sense

Whenever you listen

There’s no recompense, in a

Taxable war of attrition.

“You won’t have to suffer

If you’d just work harder!”

No nutritional buffer

For empty stomach and larder.

This so-called elite

I just don’t understand

They’d cut off your feet

And insist that you stand.

Callum Featherstone

The Sun and The Son

The Sun carries the fate

Of our future on its back

The Son carries the weight

Of his past in his pack.

The Sun practices beaming

Ready for the summer show

The Son forever dreaming

Of freedom free to grow.

The Sun solemn staring

At a world disintegrating

The Son struggles caring

In a world hell-bent on hating.

The Sun won’t last forever

But will far out last the Son

The Son’s a trifle clever

But he won’t surpass the Sun.