mentalhealth

Callum Featherstone

Fantasies of “soundly asleep“

If I dissolved the universe

for a cup of joy,

or, a sip of worth,

would your own thirst; desert, destroy?

Waive away wet debtor’s curse?

If I had wings; angelic and divine,

to float across

this great divide,

would the final approach be a gainful loss?

Pinion clipped and cropped;

by fortune’s perennial pain inside.

If I weaved you fabric journeys

from my textile dreams,

could you knit me back together?

Fix these broken seams?

If those silk and satin sojourns

of vivid;

reds, blues, yellows, greens,

became moth eaten

by their endeavour,

or, no longer serene,

could you fill the gaps

of what goes in between?

Or, would you crumble and crack,

like my fantasies of “soundly asleep”?

Living through a nightmare’s lens;

of perpetual black,

soundtrack; my innermost screams.

Callum Featherstone

Panderer’s Box

With uppercut and jab and hook,

a heavy wait, a title took,

each ring-ed bell

the blows were struck,

the nip and tuck, each step and duck…

Deeper and deeper into Hell.

Valiant defeat makes prideful gain

when they bayed for blood,

bawled and cried his name.

And on the spot the gladiator stood,

unsteady to decide again…

A moment wished it stayed for good

to cut the loss and shy the shame.

For, a panderer’s box once opened

leaves the politicians all unscathed

and the pugilist a hero; lonesome –

our punching bag, body, face.

Yes, a panderer’s box once opened

leaves the one percent much richer

and the common man – betokened –

with recipes for ailing, bitter.

Callum Featherstone

Pontoon

Adrenaline shots,

supersonic; glum superstitions,

reverberating – hot

sweating bullets inside a Tommy gun

firing dumb decisions.

Blurred memories,

smudged names, smeared faces.

Obscurity; a putrid mask,

masquerading, rot-

ting insides, sordid capers.

Sunken expressions – unbothered,

bleeding into a stony face;

red rock inhales dusty space;

coffin dodger,

deprived of breath, being distress, making sense? more or less?

Eyebrows cliffhang disgraced.

Loss and win

a holy sin.

These fat nothings

are wholly thin.

Callum Featherstone

Worn out

Worn out. What was it all for, now?

Forlorn, forgot about;

a black hole where I did shout.

Gone are days – they’re sieved out;

when I take what they give out.

Worn out;

stretched, tumbled, starched;

a struggle to get clean.

Life has left. Ragged and torn now;

by schemes that pull us apart

at the seams.

Worn out;

mangled on a daily basis.

Squeezed until the lemon is no longer envious.

The nights are what is mourned now;

whilst wearing bitter-tasting faces;

the lemon was so wrong to envy us.

Worn out;

nostalgia is a loose thread

that I’m comfortable pulling until the spool is empty.

The belt and buckle are beaten, scorned, now.

Loose mind, loose mouth; lassoed head.

And, except for moi, the launderette for fool’s is empty.

Worn out;

courage is a pair of shoes I spent my last days cleaning and shining.

And, after all that scrubbing my soles have fallen through.

So very tired of living; in exchange for weaving threadbare dreams of being; perpetually quartered, hung and drawn, out.

And, while I’m, dead, focused on the whining;

I’ve missed the infinite hole I’ve fallen into.

Worn out. Please, no more, now.

Withdrawn, without;

spent all, less discount.

Bon marché is a lived shroud;

when I take what they give out.

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.

Callum Featherstone

Thirty-three.

Misfortune favoured

by a coward

gets emboldened by

imagined

acts of bravery,

paralleling,

when freedom is

attributed, scoured

then soldered, wry,

universally enshackled,

to the liberty of slavery.

A leaden head

of melancholy

wearing

suffering’s shawl

of crusty grime

became

a body of water’s

shopping trolley,

disappearing,

in that shoal

of rusting time.

Castigating memories

lie deeply

and contorted,

misshapen

inside that meshy box.

Untrustworthy,

this hill of discontent,

rising steeply;

geography unreported,

as the corpse’s lips;

kissed the fleshy rocks.

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

Tenebrous Crow

“You haven’t done anything with your life.”

grasping once more

at bedecked self-worth

but the grip

slips

oil slicks

betwixt

mental palm and moral fingertips;

should i show my hand?

stick or twist?

“What is wrong with you?”

dark matter

is my only ally

when faced with terror

because

i can’t do anything else

can i?

hollow laughter

leaves enough space

to crawl inside and wear;

a straitjacket of cajolery

sad eyes

“You could have done so much better.”

this tenebrous crow

a constant reminder

cawing – slow

perched atop

my shoulder

peering deep into my soul;

cavernous hole

to cavernous hole

“Such a waste.”

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.