1st Mar 2023 Callum Featherstone

What the Hell

They never tell you

what it’s like when

your body gets older

but you still feel inside

the way you did at

eighteen. Impromptu

is that feeling once again

of the receding smoulder.

A fire in the belly denied

by smothered tit for tat.

You ask those questions

that cause blisters within

your mind. As the heat

steams your twisted tongue

you pour out confusion.

Their answers cause indigestion,

their falsehoods crawl your skin.

A melting of your mind meets

with a recurrence of unbelong-

ing – the age of electrocution.

Caustic cynicism is all that remains

now that the beastly brawn outwits

the worm ate brains.

The stinging scorned proudly splits

a bill with hedonism – that explains

the firmed terrain.

A drought of thinking critically, rationale and morality

created global tyrants; ruling in totality.

You have no reason to fear being sent

to hell because you live there every waking moment.

22nd Feb 202322nd Feb 2023 Callum Featherstone

What is ‘this’?

“If you are the big tree, let me tell you that

We are the small axe, sharp and ready

Ready to cut you down (well sharp)

To cut you down” – Bob Marley

Maybe we wouldn’t have to worry

about this dystopia or Thought Police

if we’d paid attention and weren’t in a hurry

protected our rights and thought of peace

made sure that every little boy and girl

had their freedoms unequivocally ingrained

in an uncodified constitution of the world

that wouldn’t commodify their names,

their games, their chats, their brains

wouldn’t commodify their friendships

wouldn’t commodify in exchange

for our chance to ever end;

this.

This; globalist

end of days.

This; oval disk

of human waste.

This; cashless

new society.

This; ask less

pay more, die early.

This; ‘how much

more can you take?’

This; smiling punch

you in the face.

This; ‘whatever’

disillusionment.

This; forever

can’t afford the rent.

This; take a pill

to ease the pain.

This; makes you ill

over again.

This; wants your life

to be a mess.

This; gives more strife,

more bills, more stress.

This; is worse in every single way.

This; works you til your dying day.

This; takes much

than pounds of flesh.

This; doesn’t need

your

excuse for less.

This; what happened

to our fledgling crop?

This happened…

We ‘the many’

never forced

‘the few’ powerful to

STOP.

17th Feb 2023 Callum Featherstone

Envy

I’ve seen a man

so consumed by envy

that his jealous heart consumed

his mind

his soul

and everything

he ever could be.

When you covet another’s life,

success,

belongings or

in this case wife –

you become a bitter container

filled with green bilious

acrimony

spending hate-filled hours

to keep that bubbling

poison on retainer.

They say it is better to have loved and lost

but if you have never loved at all –

have you even lived?

No star-crossed

lover or Shakespearean romance,

no first kiss let alone first dance..

Just a sad excuse for actions

that are always centred on a loss

you never had

and a sense of selfish pity

that leaves a feeling of disdain

because

inside you’re left

wondering what it really feels like

and where the chance to grasp a real love

ever

really

once

was.

And, as that green bilious acrimony

bubbles away in its container

it eats away at what is lonely

and devours the remainder.

Leaving nothing but dysfunction –

a stab-wound without a knife –

leaving nothing but destruction

in what was once a living life.

19th Jan 202326th Sep 2023 Callum Featherstone

Human Traffic

Those heavy, haughty, heady lights

Of glass and metal, red and white

Reaching hedonistic heady heights?

Going everywhere but nowhere fast

Going almost always steady, right?

Human traffic to the very last.

Inner city lost and found

Emperor’s no longer gowned

His smile has been bought by frowns

Took a vow no longer sacred

Impeached, disgraced, de-crowned

Returned to soured sender; ~~naked.~~

Ask that coarse concrete cocoon

“Why is now always too soon?”

Gasped out under crescent moon

Asthma ridden apparition

Let go cele-brat-ion balloon

Burst your bubbled premonition.

Satanic mill lies derelict

Social housing? That’s for heretics.

Look what we’ve inherited!!

Show your neck and wrap the noose

From gallows sprung by rhetoric

10PM displays The News;

A righteous killing of the ~~truth~~ enemy.

2nd Jan 20232nd Jan 2023 Callum Featherstone

Pink.

In this;

beguiled reality

avarice makes mincemeat of charity

and conceit fucks vanity.

The sick and the needy

die at the hands of the greedy.

Death by hate filled hearts;

scolding via network

scaffolding.

All the while, living in

wholly

indecent matrimony;

wedded by insanity.

“History always repeats itself.

History always repeats itself.”

A war of roses; red and white

without their heads

soon lost sight.

And stem of green then realised;

roses without petals

aren’t needed

nor recognised.

Angry is the blood.

Broken is the bone.

Nothing good can come from

a world wide webbed

throne

where lies are spun from.

And when all is said and done

it seems even odd to; think?

Before your actions

become

the difference between warring factions

and your essence becomes

on the brink

of existing.

Is this;

existence masquerading as extinct?

Or is this,

really;

extinction pretending

to be

in the pink?

6th Nov 20226th Nov 2022 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.

3rd Nov 2022 Callum Featherstone

The cost of living

As the final autumn leaves

Blanket the pavement beneath my feet

I’m reminded of tears of grief

Falling from hungry children’s cheeks.

In the guise of a vulture

Autumn austerity circles overhead

Eviscerates community and culture

Dining on poverty-stricken dead.

They call it a cost of living crisis

But when you take more than you’re giving

That’s a loss of giving crisis

And a sin there’s no forgiving.

25th Sep 202225th Sep 2022 Callum Featherstone

Nature versus Torture

The natural landscape is an elderly, insightful shaman.

Each rugged ridged mountain top, swell within the ocean, jagged nettle, cracked tree stump and dancing desert is a wisdom filled wrinkle, thought or expression.

The ritual undertaken by nature combines meticulous process, indefinite time and arduous repetitions. Yet, the arrogance of the human race – the young pretender – mistakenly and pompously believes to know better than nature.

If you really take a minute and think about what our planet is telling us then you would realise what it’s relationship with us has turned into.

That of a hero toward a villain.

It’s only option left is to destroy us before we harm our hero and it’s universe any further. Rising sea levels, rising world temperatures, natural disasters, wildlife extinctions and crop failures… (the list goes on) all point to one thing;

the planet must extinguish that which destroys it.

It’s enemy.

Us.

Unless, of course, this youthful pretender learns from it’s hero…

Learns that process, time and repetition are valuable within nature. Learns that nature, in turn, is valuable. Learns that nature can live without humanity but humanity cannot live without nature.

And, most importantly, learns that although we foolishly teach one another that it is never too late to change, it is too late for us to change the permanent damage and atrocities we have caused to our hero, our planet, our Earth.

However, there is still a chance to rectify further damage; if we care for nature the way nature cares for us. And, our every morsel of being.

Don’t be a fool or young pretender.

Be a hero.

Be nature.