existential

Callum Featherstone

the amputee

he’s sewn up,

sore.

and, missing;

something?

some things?

or,

somewhere?

missing.

missing; somewhat?

or, is it, someone?

a jigsaw piece;

minus it’s edge.

a garden hose;

but no hedge.

a windowsill;

without a ledge.

this fascination

with forbidden lust

is an –

amputee –

both arms;

taken;

forsaken.

and, with that being said,

he’s; still;

besotted

with a pair of gloves.

but, nevertheless,

trustily supported

by two good legs.

epiphany;

disregarded.

for, what one lacks,

sore,

one doesn’t

necessarily know

not to need

in these

matters of amour.

and,

regrettably,

one should never

overlook;

what’s beneath,

when able

to take a ride

on

romance’s

intimate see-saw.

nor,

turn their backs

on

true love’s

magnificent stampede;

in boots;

inconsiderately worn.

Callum Featherstone

Relief, awaited.

When dodecahedron bombs fall;
will you be my buried and sturdy shelter?
When cohesion is trodden to asphalt;
would you wage pitched and bloody welter?

Breakfast,
served at his majesty’s pleasure, often ladles out food for thought…
The menu – provides;
convicts, politicians, businesspeople, and, royalty,
with plenty to discuss…
Such as, ‘do the high and mighty ever dream of tasting prison porridge, as they commit high crimes, whilst they starve and cull the poor?’
And, ‘can beggared worms chew through royal lead-lined coffins from a dead beggar’s ulcered stomach sores?’ Yet, what lies in the unasked? The public inquiry into corrupt power, like lunch, awaits.

Relief without a branch
to cling to. Bare, shaken,
but, also, beyond agonising
disbelief. Avalanche met Alpine
Firs; a collage of bitter viridescence – often mistaken,
as, not life, but, death, imitating art.

What a relief!!
That’s the “good stuff”;
the pinprick and the poison-pill…
The Medicine Men have long traded in shady deals,
of jabs and hooks,
wearing labcoats lined with vaccined, pain-killing schemes.
Patiently making case studies of us all,
all the while,
toasting, our declining health,
along with silent, complicit and sickly governments.
Sláinte!

Encrypted night;
puzzling and studious, awaits
us all,
along with an unshrinking denial,
a half-blinked eye,
a non-thinked; why?
And, a nihilistic sigh. It is all, so…
insalubrious.

Awaited relief of a final breath when no more lies can be proferred no more lines can be crossed or excuses offered no more questions unanswered no more victims no more cancers no more derision and pain due to another’s conceited vision and gain no more losers no more winners no more abusers or willers of forgiveness.

Just peace; unreplicated.

And, relief, no longer, awaited.

When dodecahedron bombs fall;
will you be my buried and sturdy shelter?
When cohesion is trodden to asphalt;
would you wage pitched and bloody welter?

Callum Featherstone

When violence came

Once or twice

decisions bite unwise, saying;

unforgiving

are the memories,

unforgettable

are the scars.

Scorch marks

embedded in hands of milk

make volcanic craters;

sat in skins of satin silk.

The crash of flesh

into cigarettes;

lights, ignites and separates us.

Sombrely; in torched dark.

Burns; become words;

impressions.

Slash; abstract, absurd;

expressions.

Lacerations speak, some stutter,

of a blade which wreaked;

silent pain,

on arms which seldom mutter.

It took the opening of a cutter;

violence came,

because of an inability to scream,

an inability to speak or utter.

So, lines had to be drawn; extreme.

In disguised minds, unbelieved

eyes of thrice, say;

this living

isn’t just sensory,

existential

are the stars.