philosophy

Callum Featherstone

Existential Colours

Feeling blue

the gloaming dusk

envelops

me

cloaking my every attempt

to twist and turn

and every intent to learn; opaquely.

Feeling red

sky at night – Shepherd’s delight?

Or a rage deep inside – unevening.

Incandescent

but ever present and waiting,

waiting for the time to strike;

a clock

with fiery hands that yearn

to make this whole system

burn

eternally to the ground.

Feeling green

mentally bilious

cognitively all at-sea

desensitised

to the obscene

filled with so many

thoughts, feelings and disinformation

but alas unable to scream

unable to tell what is real.

The propaganda machine vomits more lies…

“You’re ill. Do as you’re told and stop asking questions.”

With a punch, a jab

it puts to bed freedom’s dream.

You snooze, you lose.

Sickening to the extreme.

Felt yellow

once upon a

sun beam

that cushioned joy of unmarshalled

mellow;

sun shining sweetly

summer breeze

vanilla ice cream

a happy, smiling, unbridled fellow until

The Neo Nightmare

becomes a novel series

out of

what was once

a magazine.

Callum Featherstone

Scattered Scions

And as that outward blowing breath

scatters floating seeds of dandelions

my thoughts of birth and life and death

coalesce among the scattered scions.

For what is now has always been

and will return from future passing –

the sight of what remains, unseen;

your loss – not lost – but everlasting.

This life has now come to a close

and we reminisce on all your giving

a beacon bright bursts through morose

your shining light that lifts our living.

As we send you on your next new journey

we cherish those fond memories

we take a clutch and grasp them firmly

where you live on; in our reveries.

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

more

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.

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.

Callum Featherstone

Rescue

You are a pathway strait

unlike your last mistake

and mistakes are learning curves;

they aren’t your overall fate.

You have your being

but their eyes aren’t seeing

what goes on inside

of your mind as it’s fleeing.

Steady your ship

sail yourself to equip

yourself with a set

of masts they cannot rip

or strip.

Rescue yourself from the doldrums

breath fresh air into your lungs

leave the noxious and nasty

to suffocate on their own tongues.

Cause they never will know

what you have lived and do know;

they don’t deserve to encounter

what you can be

what you will be

what you will become

when you thrive and you grow.

Set your sights and show

that beauty bright

and innermost light

of your selfless glow.

Smile like the crest of a wave

and remain deep

leave those naysayers to weep

in their shallow dug graves.

Callum Featherstone

You Shooting Stars

Feeling hopeless and helpless

Left alone feeling selfless

Aren’t reasons to feel

That your life doesn’t help us.

‘Cause you matter so much

And your matter is such

That nobody can take it

In their own selfish clutch.

When the time comes you’ll know

Just like arrow and bow

That you were meant to shoot

To the stars – ever glow,

You may live to suffer

And if it gets all the tougher

Then please just remember

Together we grow.

Don’t let go.

Callum Featherstone

Death & Taxes

Death and taxes

are for certain –

you spend your life

for the final curtain.

So, what does it matter –

what is the point?

Tiny feet?

The pitter patter?

Success? Career?

Trophy wife?

Or, is there more

than meets the eye?

Burnt candle wax is

time passed by.

And passers by

you learn their faces

on commutes

littered with

sojourned strangers.

Just like the streets

you learn to tread,

learn to steer clear

of some instead.

A forever question

of take and give

of peace and war

of love and hate

of is there more?

Wipe the slate.

Clean the floor.

Swallow a hard pill

for indigestion.

Make your mind

up what you want!

They cannot find

the knowledge fount.

When all is said

and all is done,

when blue is red

and cruel is kind,

you’ll search the times

⁃ a memorial quest

and smile sublime

(once taxed to death)

at not need or want

fulfilled at behest.

But, of those you loved

and those who loved

loving you the best.

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.

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

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.