existence

Callum Featherstone

Build bridges not walls

A wall is made for breaking down

A brickyard’s tears, a stony frown

Ventless, relentless, in the past

America, Berlin, Belfast

Partition found on world renown.

A bridge is made to bring together

A culture crossing, a road for better

Far-reaching, for teaching

The human condition’s seeking

Each step across is a capped feather.

The walls you put up within your heart

Deny a chance for love to start

Foreboding, eroding

Bitterness, self-loathing

Constant reminder – landing marks.

The bridge you build will bolster new

Strengthens souls and spirits too

Co-operation, exaltation

Meeting in the middle; combination

Helps humanity by uniting you.

Callum Featherstone

Soul-searching

We are all cut from the same cloth

Black or white. Pauper or posh

And as those veracious bubbles do froth

The truth always comes out in the wash.

Life’s banquet is seared with many decoys

Blue, well-done, medium and rare

You can never delect in the delicious joys

Without first tasting bitter despair.

It’s always the cruel that bloom and flourish

It beggars belief how the meek don’t inherit

We must first plant wisdom and courage

To stop them reaping from our own merit.

Because when life is unkind

And your ducks don’t stay in a row

Sometimes you have to lose your mind

To find your soul.

Callum Featherstone

The thing is…

Whatever it might be

It’s them and not me

Something found you’ll still miss

The thing is…

I can’t put my finger on it

Darkness can never be lit

Never cease nor desist

The thing is…

You’ll find a problem you look for

In colour, creed, or much more

Whether words or a fist

The thing is…

We all bleed one way

Same colour, red – every day

The thing is…

We are all in this.

Together.

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.

Callum Featherstone

True Grit

The only way is up when rock bottom’s been hit

After your mind has been smeared from a fan full of shit

When life didn’t pan out quite exquisite

And you’re chewing real dirt tasting your own true grit.

It’s hard to be wholesome in a world so broken

Surrounded by sleeping minds afraid to be woken

Fractured leg-acies left bereft and unspoken

Whilst taken and took as a novelty token.

The denial of free thought and free speech through laws

Show the fights of the future won’t be physical wars

True freedom lives between those ears of yours

In the mind of a rebel who trebles their cause.

Callum Featherstone

Point the Pin

Thoughts are running wild

Their hoofs unruly; trample

Cerebellum sands reviled

Scatter, scurry and they scramble

A lack of understanding

As to why this burden carries

Aptitude is demanding

Mind and fear; forever marries

It’s hard to point the pin

If there ever really was one

In self-loathing, selfish skin

That coalesces til it’s gone

Yes, the suffering it stings

But the feeling never lasts

The ‘only hope’ should cling

Yielded tight within the grasp.

Callum Featherstone

Fortune?

Making the mark

But it’s benevolence burst

Daunting and dark

A world that awards the worst.

Respect; it retreated

Future is frantically fearful

Discussion gets deleted

Tumult is tyrannic and tearful.

Riding the rails

Halfway heaven and hell

Fighting yet frail

Fortune? Forever it fell.

Callum Featherstone

2022 is 1984

When you’re told what to think

By populist rhetoric and martial law

When you’re told when to blink

Twenty twenty two is nineteen eighty four.

When your mental health’s on the brink

From constant pressure galore

And your heart starts to sink

Twenty twenty two is nineteen eighty four.

When your only relief is drugs and drink

And your spirit is broken to its core

As they dismantle every link

Twenty twenty two is nineteen eighty four.

When your future’s as bright as invisible ink

Wondering; is it really worth fighting for?

When dreams so big are forced to shrink

Twenty twenty two is nineteen eighty four.

Callum Featherstone

The Light

When you fear your future’s faded

When you’re growing grey and thin

When your chips have all been traded

And you feel you’ll never win

When you start to wane and wallow

In intrepid, toxic times

There’s a light for you to follow

A light inside you shines

It’s a light that fills your soul

And makes you who you are

Brightens the bleakest, blackest hole

Heals the deepest, darkest scar

In the corpus of commotion

Let that beautiful beacon beam

Across the unforgiving ocean

From the lighthouse of your dreams.

Callum Featherstone

Pen & Sword

Sword says to Pen

“I’m tougher than you,

A cock to your hen.

You’ll suffer for true.”

Pen says to Sword

“I embrace what I’ve heard

And for your reward

I gift you my words.”

Sword was most pleased

Thinking Pen was relenting

And Sword’s bluster ceased

From the furious venting

But Pen sat and smiled

Knowing words can’t be owned

And Sword then beguiled

Had now been dethroned

Pen to Sword whispered

“Words belong to one and all,

Every madam and mister,

And pride comes before the fall.”