hope

Callum Featherstone

Cracks in the ceiling

The cracks in the ceiling

Make a frowning face

of this house

Leaving a mark

Like the joy that you’re stealing

When hatred spews from your mouth

But we find light in the dark.

Find the light…

In the cracks of the ceiling

In the lines of your face

As you smile through the feelings

Of dread and disgrace.

Though you might

find fear

In the cracks of the ceiling

And find

the end is near

As you smile

through those feelings…

Feel you’re

Just so out of place.

Try to find the light.

Find yourself in the cracks

Plug them whole with your strength

And love one another

to great length

Find yourself in the smiles

Make happiness your self-pact.

Cause those cracks in the ceiling

Are rainfall of sorrow – drowning

Awash with feelings you dread

But when it’s someone else flailing instead

You’ll find those cracks

Can be filled up with care

And kindness;

both buoyant and healing.

When someone else’s house is frowning

And spirit drowning

Don’t let that sorrow seep in

Use your compassion.

Be there.

Plug the cracks with your love.

Fill your house with that love.

Build each other with love.

Lovingly,

Build one another up.

Callum Featherstone

Under Covers

It just might

be undercover;

human dust-mites.

Disapproving mother

makes

forbidden lovers

play more like animals

in the heat

under their collars.

Our symbiotic

shapes

feeling – just right.

The feeling smothers

you uptight

– breathing in –

water fountains and lakes

within bed covers.

Horizontally upright.

No bearing grudges

or bearing down upon

the breaks

when the love’s right.

There’s no trust like

it with anyone

else or any others;

this is our

glorious mistake

and this is what

love

really looks like.

We are always

shining bright together,

shining love’s light.

Even into old age,

our last chapter

and our

intertwined fates

remain forever…

We were right

to be undercover;

even after…

human dust-bites.

Callum Featherstone

A Voyage to the Impossible.

What matters the most to you shouldn’t be able to be experienced from your bodily senses. It should come from deep within your inner most depths and be intangible. Far away from the noise of this world and way into the realms of the impossible.

Transforming physical possession and perception into transcendental prosperity.

Despite the wonders of our minds and their ability to perceive so many things, we are taught in a blinkered, binary, positive/negative fashion from a very young age – good/bad, right/wrong, happy/sad.

But, we are all of these things at all times throughout our lives. Think about it;

An evil man can make a just law.

A good man can follow an unjust cause.

Both could be the same man;

of a different sort,

on different days too

and in different lives.

So, before you judge; pause.

Remember;

A journey’s map isn’t always to hand.

True wisdom is always food for thought.

Ignorance within your mind betrays you.

And, your everlasting infinite soul survives…

Always.

Your very existence is an impossible journey and, yet, here you are…

Life is the swelling sea, your mind is the swinging ship and your soul is the ripple of every wave which laps up against both life and mind, sea and ship, on a voyage to the impossible.

Callum Featherstone

Cosmonaught

Arrogance of present answers

on past tech and advances,

history’s cerebral romances

laid in the dirt asleep,

by far frog-leaped;

and also out-enhanced us.

Commonplace it justly saddens –

common faces become assassins.

As Julius imbibed Manhattans

the death-toll sparked egregious.

The space in between us

became

chasms;

intercontinental planetary spasms.

It all matters; dark and light.

It all matters; wrong or right.

What’s the matter?

Bhagavad Gita? Quoting chapters?

Nuclear war hindsight…

Science, not before but after;

made sure of atomic plight.

You are birth, life and death;

in a universal breath.

An infinite respirator

expressed;

by heavy traffic – stars and planets.

A cosmos complete yet

bereft.

Callum Featherstone

Making sense

When the eyes are opened

By Pineal once closed

A cerebral token

Of belief takes hold.

When their mouth’s deceitful

Don’t eat from chaos’ hand

Keep your diet peaceful

So that your mind expands.

When the scent overpowers

To cover their tracks

Be aware that some flowers

Set deadly traps.

When your hearing’s confused

Locked down in a prism

Paint thoughts colourful hues

Canvass yourself and listen.

And if you’re feeling out of touch

Take a moment to remember;

Our light burns out

by smothering clutch

And there is no fire

without an ember.

Callum Featherstone

Gules, argent and azure

Gules, argent and azure;

Is it really worth fighting for?

A folded flag on your coffin door;

Is it really worth dying for?

If you took the troops & civilians

Who were murdered by war

They’d measure in millions

They rest in peace?! Or at all?!

Cause the peaces don’t match

And the peace is a puzzle

War’s an itch you can’t scratch

A rabid dog you can’t muzzle

They’re inextricably linked

Dead civilian, dead soldier

Both should be extinct

But grow older and older

And younger and younger

There’s no ageism in bloodshed

But the greedy warmonger

Sees £ signs coloured blood-red

War is a game of power

99 percent of us lose in

Don’t choose graveside flowers

Cannon fodder’s not for chews-ing

Gules, argent and azure;

Is it really worth fighting for?

A folded flag on your coffin door;

Is it really worth dying for?

Callum Featherstone

Remember the Peace

On Armistice Day I’ll ask of you this

With the poppy you’ll wear

To commemorate the long list

Of young men dead – with care.

Of those we have mourned

Yearly, since nineteen-forty-five

Other pieces of Peace we have scorned

Saving countless peoples lives.

War in proximity that always relates

Is that Troubled area over the strait.

What else could we do? Celebrate?

A peace process since nineteen-ninety-eight.

And there is a list over there

Long and left without.

No clover? Nor poppy? Or something altogether more fair.

Still, Peace worth remembering without a doubt.

So when you wear a poppy.

To remember.

Or choose not to.

To remember.

Try to remember.

Those slain and lost.

In the bitterness of November.

Remember the Peace and what it cost.

Callum Featherstone

Dove of Peace

From a room inside your mind

Never mind the lack of room

As the room you hope to find

On the inside of your head.

Because outside that vital place

Is without you, no longer vital

Because within yourself is grace

And outwardly your wings to spread.

Misunderstood so lately

And often only by yourself

But to others matters greatly

Through your justness dearly held.

You put your trust in others

And they only let you down

But you rode the lonely buffers

Without a grimace or a frown.

And you stand before the world

Knowing your true self post-defame

And you tamed the downward spiral, swirl

Understood your self and name.

Callum – dove of peace

Peaceful dove that hopes to give

Enough at least to teach

How understanding helps us live.

Callum Featherstone

Masquerade

You look in the mirror

And see

See too much

See their mistreatment

See your failures

See it all but don’t want to.

You look in the mirror

You like it for once

And then you feel

Shame for being vain

Shame for thinking about you

Shame for even thinking. Just

Shame.

When smashing the mirror –

the smithereens –

make a realisation –

all of it was a façade =

a masquerade in glass.

Because the broken pieces

Make a broken person and

Broken people can only dream of being whole.

Callum Featherstone

Inevitability

The ever impending doom that is death lingers over us on a daily basis. We are reminded constantly of what it is to be human, and, what it is to be mortal, despite our best efforts to duck, dodge and dive away from the ageing process. Whether it be an early, mid or late life crisis, they all boil down to the same sediment and sentiment.

That we are born and in doing so we must eventually die.

And when you really think about it; the futility of life that is, it is deeply frightening.

At one point or another we will all experience this thought:

“I am just a grain of sand in an ever expanding universe that will have zero impact on history whatsoever. I will be forgotten just the same as everyone who has ever lived, and everyone whoever will live.”

And this is totally normal. Terrifying, but normal.

Most people combat these negative feelings through distraction. This is a good idea seeing as the feeling of insignificance is incredibly unpleasant.

Inevitably distraction is a key part of what it is to be human.

Equally, so is mortality.

The irony being that a distraction from the inevitable only brings that inevitability closer towards you.

I would argue that it is always better to embrace the inevitable.

Now don’t get me wrong. It would be unwise to ruminate on the fragility of existence constantly because ultimately this would cause strong feelings of depression and/or anxiety. I do, however, believe that it is good to come to terms with your fate. In doing so you will defeat fear itself and unlock your true potential to live.

My very simple advice would be as follows;

Live in the moment rather than the past.

Seize the day rather than worry about the future.

Remember that life is futile but you don’t have to be.

Die living. Don’t live dying.

Ultimately the chance of you being created is around 1 in 400 trillion. So, why waste it?

Death is inevitable. Life, however, is not.