future

Callum Featherstone

Citric

Alone.

In the clutching arms of

slow dismay,

life’s emptying

embrace becomes

a bitter kiss of zest,

unrest and then,

death.

These unrepentant lips

of fast decay;

helpless.

Drowning sorrows

miss

lasting breath.

Killing time…

or is a lacklustre

seizure of diem,

chilling? Unfitting?

Now, freeze,

frozen; killed.

Begrudgement feeds

from citrus seeds;

fleshy lemon is cut,

callous lime is grazed,

blood orange is spilled.

Sour citric expressions

of conceptual fruits;

in labour –

are squeezed;

oozing destiny unfulfilled.

Callum Featherstone

Abridged

A body transformed by fight and flight;

becomes planes and pugilists –

how can it be winged and have insight

when blindly flies it’s fists?

A mind so awash with emotion;

those inner thoughts drown in the swell –

how can you find a teardrop in the ocean

when your bucket has been lost down the well?

A spirit hell-bent on remaining uncrushed;

riding the rubble of a landslide –

how can it stay calm when it gets pushed?

It takes a peace in all that collides.

A solution we angrily overlook

when rising tides make us falter –

how can the rubble change our luck?

Build a bridge across the water.

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

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

Persona non grata

Requiem

“will that make me look sexy, then?”

A pubescent teen

with nothing, not even self-esteem.

“Will that make them accept me, then?”

Acquiesce

to the authority of stress

of adulthood’s cold compromise;

the coatless blizzard of the wise,

final kiss by blue lipped death.

Ad astra

far away from a living disaster.

Breaking fleshed cocoon of rust

and becoming a star; stardust.

Intergalactic; invoked forever-after.

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

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

King Kindness

Seclusion said to

Sadness

“Why the glum face?”

Sadness solemnly replies,

“I’d ask you the same question

if I could only get out of this

place…”

Memory meddled with Anger

asking,

“Did it really happen like that?”

Anger incandescently answers,

“How dare you question me?!

You fool!!

You’ve forgotten the facts!!”

Ignorance skipped along vacant

swinging hand in hand with

their friend Bliss when,

they spurted out,

“Knowledge is dead;

we don’t know them and

won’t miss them.”

Fortune bowed

at the feet of Bravery

and it’s achievements.

Fortune grovelled,

“Please take me but be careful.

My attendance

brings with it malfeasance.”

King Kindness watched over

offered to help them all out;

managed to find friends for Seclusion

showed Sadness what Happiness was all about

bought a diary for Memory

and helped Anger get some stress relief

Ignorance was made to see

how Knowledge when brought back to life

helps improve self-belief

and that (unsurprisingly) made Bliss even more happy

Bravery was taught humility

and Fortune thanked King Kindness

because that meant wealth was spread equally

between the lowly Pauper and those called ‘Your Highness’.

If only we took that bit of guidance!!

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.