galaxy

Callum Featherstone

Something within

They said,

“well, at least, you don’t miss

something

that you never knew.”

this pater-shaped hole

began to impress;

began to exceed excess.

And, once begun,

it couldn’t be undone,

it made both

beginning, and, ending;

without gravitas. Gone.

A filicidal forecast looming

within,

gloomy;

whether he reigned or son shone

“A victim of cruel circumstance?”

this pater-shaped hole

became a grave of discontent,

deep.

So, very, deeply;

without.

No heaped shovel or search

within

could ever uncover it,

nor, taste of stark reality

– stomach it

“A by-product of uncertain romance?”

this pater-shaped hole

has a

dangerous potential

to permeate

generations,

going from keyhole;

within, to black-hole;

exhuming –

gravity without fixture,

irrevocably vacuuming;

sons of Mars,

Venus’ daughters,

zodiac stars, suns, moons,

and all of their explorers,

solar systems, nebulae,

and, galactic formations

of future paterfamilias,

of all things familial,

intergenerational idioms,

inscriptions and incantations

“I didn’t miss what I had never known.

I just knew that something within was missing.

Half the time I felt apart, alone.

Half of my history in absentia whilst existing.”

Callum Featherstone

What? Do you think?

What if

to err is to be human?

But, not universal?

And, we are at best

Elysian mongrels –

in a field –

of wrongful existence;

an inhumane breed

that isn’t meant.

To be?

What? Do you think?

No,

nothing,

not at all.

Despite those Janus

empirical attempts

to civilise – by both

British and otherwise.

Tasking those unfit

with tyrannical wishes

of afternoon tea,

ballroom dances

and decorum

all the while

killing both

domestic and foreign

masses. Making

“civilised” territorial advances;

civilians accosted for the

colonial-cost

of another version of history;

lost;

whitewashed.

What? Do you think?

No,

nothing,

not at all.

An inhumane answer

is cruel enough

to be considered; just.

But,

to care about one another –

is just – too much?

We; this planetary cancer

of uncompassionate

missed chances..

Founded on

beings; lost.

What? Do you think?

No,

nothing,

not at all.

On homeward soil,

does terrafirm suffering

stop?

Outward..

Galactic empathy –

would be what?

Buffering? Double-bluffing.

Never gonna happen?

Watch this space;

amass dispersal.

What if

to forgive; divine

and life’s just a rehearsal

after all?

What do you think?

If all is, really, nothing?

Yes.

Then, there’s really

nothing to lose

at all.

Callum Featherstone

Complexities

An unspoken knowledge

speaks

from intergalactic colleges

wreaks

havoc in your inner sanctum.

Would

it matter if you ever thanked some

unknowing entity –

baffled by complexity?

Could

you find the words to comprehend?

Intelligence

that’s beyond the curve and bend

of

space and time and hate and

love.

Ideas of immaculate protection

prophylactic by conception.

Mysteries of universes that expand

can never be grasped by the hand.

For, if they were to be held –

our complexities – like broken shells

would be uncovered in a grain of sand.

Sifting and shifting – beats the drum of time

expanding and expounding – a celestial rhyme,

“What does become

has been departed,

The cycle ends

just where it started…”

Callum Featherstone

Interred-Galactic

“The more you learn,

The less you know.”

Scorned the Galaxy, stern

To her Stars as they glow

Glimmer.

Star bursts, “The irony isn’t lost

On me. I’m still a bright spark.”

Not realising the cost

Of stardust culminating in dark.

Dimmer.