poems

Callum Featherstone

Don’t, just, be a star. Become a galaxy.

I’m often, mentally, brought to my knees, with melancholy, when I think, of, the utter callousness, of, the human species.

My cerebellum’s, figurative, grey, grazed patellae are; a metaphor, which compound the pleading, within my mind, for mankind to stop, and, think.

Think about our selfish, greedy, unflinching nature.

Think about our incredible lack of foresight. Foresight, for not only our fellow genus, but, the wider amalgam, of; wildlife, biodiversity, planetary ecology, and, ultimately, our world, and, universe.

Our arrogance, and, sense of self, have become, our own baited, foolish, avaricious universes.
Solitary, loathsome universes, filled with;
galaxies of material wishes,
solar systems of Internet based gratification,
constellations of exploitation,
and, nebulae that beckon fruitless, divisive competition.

All in the hope of ‘getting ahead’ and/or ‘becoming a star’.

Ironically, we are all composed, of; stardust.

And, on that basis, I believe that we should do everything, humanly possible, to create our own; galaxy of justice – here on Earth.

A galaxy, where, instead of compete for monetary wealth, (a practice which has long seen; each, and, every genius star, capable of contributing any egalitarian offering to humanity – “miraculously” being snuffed out by the establishment e.g. Nikolai Tesla etc.) we, lift one another up, amasse, and, unite – within our; ninety-nine-percent nebula.

By eradicating, the elitist; Black Hole, we, together; can create real, monumental change. The kind of change, which will, echo, throughout; the generations, heavens, realms, and, multiverses.

Whilst standing idly by, the so-called ‘elites’ will continue to;
imbibe our misery,
bathe in our systematic poverty,
mop up any hope of our revolution,
and, spew propaganda, via every form of media, to poison the minds of; every generation, it has the manical pleasure of tainting.

The time is now to; expand our minds, gravitate to one another’s plight, and, escape, revolt, and destroy; the elitist Black Hole, which delights in our unchained servitude.

Don’t, just, be a star. Become a galaxy.

Callum Featherstone

Covered in shit.

I see a multitude
of civilisations
numbering millions.

All succumbing
to the human condition.

The ignorant bliss
of futile competition.

And the want for nothing
of the conquering
“Williams”.

The powerful knowledge
desiring
only it’s passing.

Hedonistic idolatry
rooted in poisonous soil.

Blood, sweat, and, tears
of proletariat toil.

A glorious revolution
never to happen.

Propaganda posited
in the national curriculum.

Bonfires burnt
laden with gunpowder.

Squaddies sent to die
while officers cower.

Bees upturned
in their graveyard capitulum.

Vox populi turned
by demagogue’s spit.

Creed, race, and, religion
used to divide.

Subtraction of heroes
dying inside.

And, at the very bottom
of the mountain,

ninety-nine per cent of us; covered in shit.

Callum Featherstone

marching worlds, january’s faces.

stuck
betwixt the tread,
of;

two marching worlds.

weathered, weary brows.
eclipsed grimaces,
curled.

the gravity,
en-masse –
renders souls stomped.

drudging.

unequal, obtuse gaits.
hateful, stubborn heels;

dug in.

taking steps,
to alleviate;

the-ever-climbing-stress.

fallen
– on deafened ears.
forsaken, and, too inwardly –
obsessed.

obsessed –
by the trampling hoof,
of;

right, and,
wrong.

right, left, right, left.

foot on the neck
of a swan’s;

final song.

and, the two jaded faces of
january;

cry,

down to their single-file –
soles
of white.

measuring
irreparable ill-treament
in feet, and, inches;

dark, and, light.

Callum Featherstone

A half-forgotten song

Time is a half-forgotten song.


Each softly sung,
then,

disappearing

note;

is an alarming, eternal reminder
of being secondary
to a larger symphony.

Errors made in haste
din short like catchy,
hooking choruses.

Whilst unmade amends
become musical lessons
that echo;

lengthy, lecturing, lifelong – laments.

Yes, time is a half-f…

Callum Featherstone

A cross to bear that bore a hole.

Innocence violently
punctured;
penetrated,
by the seemingly;
pious,
“preacher-teacher”.

The irony is never
missing;
when finding out,
for real,
the encountered
misery;
in the book of Job,
im-
maturely.

Keeping the faith;
through gritted,
infant
mandible.

A cross to bear
that bore a hole.
Apart – lost from
a heart, and, soul.

The day you came;
to geld a foal.
Invaded deep;
with devil’s goal.

You tried to break
my spirit
by taking away
my virtue.
Lucifer rendered
you complicit;
knowing I would
never hurt you.

And, through all the
hardship, fear, and, pain.
All the anguish
that I live through.
All the times I could have
given up, and, gone insane.

I should hate you, and, want you;

dead.

But, better yet,

I forgive you.

Callum Featherstone

Painting the frown; Dread.

Shifting the gear,
clutching at nostrils.
Eight hours;
of undulating, pedalled pleasure.
Communally imbibing Christ’s
blood, like, twelve apostles.
Resurrection; found in a spirit’s –
double measure…

A snifter of hope –
blown into a smoky bottle.
Three graveyard shifts later,
the zombie’s bottleneck is throttled.
Followed by –
three days of manic, forsaken terror.
The fear imprisoned mind;
crucified; by pedantic Aristotle…

Painting the frown;
Dread.
A beer-goggled gaze –
locks onto a clown’s ruby-red smile.
Brushstrokes of panic,
turn the landscape;
a greyer shade of lead.
Judah’s lion, and, lioness;
have already been defiled.
The fledgling doves;
have found heavenly peace –
as; vertically, they have fled…

But, for, we – desolate few;
escape is futile.
Eden has gone.
From, ethereal garden, to, shed.
All trees, plants,
flowers, bushes,
and, wooden panels,
have been collectively burnt, and, shred.
By pasty, secateur-ing devils – that beguile.
Who ask for details,
to stop, and, search,
the saintly, for a while…

Cuff, beat, confine, and, brutalise,
without proving need; the “lowerbred”.
In their eyes,
a twinkling morning star,
cast us down.
But, righteous children; always rise.
Ascending high above –
Babylon’s screaming, burning lies.
Losing blueish, busied noses,
to spite;
in the face of systematic –
destruction, and, denial.

Callum Featherstone

A Dervish, named; ‘Constantine’.

I, Myself. Constantine.
A trailblazer. Making my mark,
until tremors, quaking, and, a long lived aftershock. Got trapped, got sick, now,
making my way home; to Torment.
Manifested;
off-track, lost, unfound, raging, bitter, twisted.
And, sick. Obviously.

Disorientated, tranquil tornadoes,
of, marauding memories,
revolve statically;
sarcastically whirling,
with the sincerest, of all, ironies;
like a Dervish, riding a languid carousel,
a Dervish, named;
‘Constantine’.
The inert twisters,
carry, and, cast –
concealed emotions,
that are; born to seek death,
that are; created to destroy.

The camouflaged
saliences, are;

re -visited,
re -worn,
re -vealed;

‘In the stitching –
a khirqa of shame, whispers, “guilt survives, long after, the dead, have been mourned.” As sorrow seeps, from, a blood-soaked; hood, cuffs, and, sleeves – where cloying, bloodthirsty tarmac, bore it’s teeth, causing shudders. Devouring all escapes, to salvation.
And, after grasping, deep-down,
in those, endless, cloak pockets, Mercy, was found slain. Smothered, by iniquity, concrete, rocks and rubble, as compassion is, demolished by dark, anguished,
traumatic silences.’

Uncontrollable
obedience – stagnantly spins,
and, turns, soothing provocations,
into, a, swooner’s consciousness.
Hushed screeches vomit, teasing and tormenting; to mutilate…
To massacre;
a begging, bruised, exhausted, inner-sanctum.

A colourless draining.
The colour is fading,
from psyche’s cheeks,
a liquidating; of shady pulp,
of soft, once radiant,
rainbow spattered, but, now, only;
grey matters.

I, Myself. Constantine.
A soggy, battered, quivering, hasbeen. An already; blazed trail.
Long forgotten.
Lying beneath,
a superego’s ocean-jungle undergrowth, where there, once was, a long, plumed, dove-white robe.
Overgrown, crestfallen, and, un-phren-dly;
lying beneath,
the forsaken waves, of; lost seas, past shocks and, cruel, convulsive, inclemencies.

Callum Featherstone

Fifty-two lightning strikes; deserted.

Escaping,
bitter seas,
of, slippery grips,
betwixt,
waves of gritted,
inhumane hands;
are; ferocious tides,
of, untimely;
porous – reveries,
scattered notions,
of buckets and spades,
abandoned;
castles of sand.

Amongst,
searing footsteps,
of, downtrodden,
Atlas-burdened,
vanishing – caravans;
yearns; a purpose,
however, unlikely;
changing tact,
or, track?
Parting seas, or, ways?
Searching for answers,
or, the truth?
Fearing God, or, man?

Eviscerating,
the pot-bellied,
beach,
with hurled,
long-ranging bolt,
of, Zeus’,
electrifying brand;
galvanis-ing;
crack,
and, crash,
sublime-ly;
exploding;
bashful,
pock-marks,
on the coastline’s;
dusty naval,
then, birthing
mishaps,
of, misshapen,
yet, fierce; fulgurite,
a serendipitous,
by-product,
of a,
vengeful,
God’s
plan.

Callum Featherstone

Love’s perilous shallows

Those sunken…

relationships,
cause wrecks,
when love is perilously shallow.
Reluctant and scorned, the captains,
dive into their slippery,
ill-gotten, untitled, reckonings.

A backpedalling pool,
of thick, cementing gruel,
turning stomachs,
into, trodden, broken,
ceramics,
and, once, placid waters,
into, viscous, panics.

“King Cnut was awash,
with humility, and, a gut-wrenching knot, in his defeat, to the seas,
and, deemed them; majestic,
Godly, and, hallowed.
For, he knew, then, that his reign,
could not stop, the rains of April,
nor, reverse the ocean tides,
despite his courtiers’ love,
being perilously shallow.”

The salty waves,
of harpoon-shaped tears,
submit to sandy cheeks of forlorn,
creating crestfallen beach tides.
Memories resurface; embittered,
and, resentful,
as, sodden spite, is beckoning.

Frostbitten, arctic remarks,
chisel those, once, bleeding hearts,
into cold, scuppered; currachs.
Punctured, and, capsized,
from, ice-veined, blue-blood, it freezes, and, attacks;
subverting, and, destroying the voyage; of doomed solicitude;
when love is perilously shallow.

Callum Featherstone

Relief, awaited.

When dodecahedron bombs fall;
will you be my buried and sturdy shelter?
When cohesion is trodden to asphalt;
would you wage pitched and bloody welter?

Breakfast,
served at his majesty’s pleasure, often ladles out food for thought…
The menu – provides;
convicts, politicians, businesspeople, and, royalty,
with plenty to discuss…
Such as, ‘do the high and mighty ever dream of tasting prison porridge, as they commit high crimes, whilst they starve and cull the poor?’
And, ‘can beggared worms chew through royal lead-lined coffins from a dead beggar’s ulcered stomach sores?’ Yet, what lies in the unasked? The public inquiry into corrupt power, like lunch, awaits.

Relief without a branch
to cling to. Bare, shaken,
but, also, beyond agonising
disbelief. Avalanche met Alpine
Firs; a collage of bitter viridescence – often mistaken,
as, not life, but, death, imitating art.

What a relief!!
That’s the “good stuff”;
the pinprick and the poison-pill…
The Medicine Men have long traded in shady deals,
of jabs and hooks,
wearing labcoats lined with vaccined, pain-killing schemes.
Patiently making case studies of us all,
all the while,
toasting, our declining health,
along with silent, complicit and sickly governments.
Sláinte!

Encrypted night;
puzzling and studious, awaits
us all,
along with an unshrinking denial,
a half-blinked eye,
a non-thinked; why?
And, a nihilistic sigh. It is all, so…
insalubrious.

Awaited relief of a final breath when no more lies can be proferred no more lines can be crossed or excuses offered no more questions unanswered no more victims no more cancers no more derision and pain due to another’s conceited vision and gain no more losers no more winners no more abusers or willers of forgiveness.

Just peace; unreplicated.

And, relief, no longer, awaited.

When dodecahedron bombs fall;
will you be my buried and sturdy shelter?
When cohesion is trodden to asphalt;
would you wage pitched and bloody welter?