poetry

Callum Featherstone

Under A Snow-driven Age

I have become an unflipt calendar,
with halting pages, slow.
That, only, turn over, to;
stop, freeze, lay, low.

A quickening mind of dates & times,
that remains unmet.
Whilst caught, fraught— lost,
under a snow-driven age.

And, as life-long, cold barren winters, called, ‘Chronostasis’, hold to chilled ransom my nightly blights. They thrust toward me, unjust, piercing my exposed thoughts,
with sharp ice-picks that cut right through the absence of my joy in evening’s light.

They bleed from my seasons,
any chance of,
a sun-soaked homecoming.

Instead, giving out to each,
lone, shivering memory,
yearning for familial embraces —

taut

a blizzarding blow that buffets away, any sense from me,

of those cosy, halcyon days:

my youth, spent a-bask,

in tobasco summer’s warmth.

Each night, that passes me by,

unmoved.

I am, further from,
my point of equatorial origin.

I walked & trudged long,
on the spot, for miles.

Following, still, Hibernal hooves.
Hearing, Despair’s shrill, brumal song.

In search of my vanished, joyous youth.

Amongst, the brutal, everlasting, whiles.

Where is my equatorial origin?

Uncentred and strewn ‘cross,
soon bleak, silver plains.

Like the swathes of arboreal foragers,
that the Younger Dryas impact’s frost, lost—
under a snow-driven age.

No, those joyous, youthful, halcyon days of mine,
won’t shine — lost,
under this snow-driven age.

I’ll never shine — lost,
under a snow-driven age.

© poormansdreams

Callum Featherstone

Wandering Lost: Through My Window’s Secret Pane

And, so, I wander, lost;
A requiem of frost
glazed & cracked
on my window’s secret pane.
I tried to cut my loss
in woods — glass-eyed, cross.
But, the frozen plaque
on my see-through heart
it stayed.

I was not the same after you left.
So, I wander, lost, like, uncaught breath.

I exhaled mouthed mist. Upon crystal apertures. To scrawl your name and face. But, no matter the words I scribed, or, tears I stopped & shied. The Condensation’s dots: below, atop — crying i’s, still do not reveal your gaze.

So, I wander, lost. In branchly moss. Until, my private pane, defrosts. Hoping one day for a view:

to the otherside, across,


to feel, just once more, your;


glanced embrace, again.

© poormansdreams

Callum Featherstone

Edith’s Perseids

The name Edith, of Old English origin, means “prosperous in war” or “rich in battle”. It combines the elements “ead,” meaning “wealth” or “prosperity,” and “gyth,” meaning “strife” or “war”.

Perseid in British English

(ˈpɜːsɪɪd ) noun. any member of a meteor shower occurring annually around August 12th, appearing to radiate from a point in the constellation Perseus and derived from comet Swift-Tuttle. Word origin.

I saw you in the afterglow,
of the tailed swishes,
across a Gloaming’s sky.
I caught you in my roaming eye,
like, failed wishes;
reborn
From their own crashes; grown.


For twenty years,
you have shined on high.
Casting the heavens bright,
from the wealth,
of burning flames, on August nights.
That rage, like; war, within your name.


I witness their fractured patterns.
Thinking of you — whole.
And, reminisce, on the fire in your soul.
There, I visit your scattered ashes.
Scorching; dark, white, like, coal.
Unlimited in death,
as you were in life;

Warm, I adorn, your bravely essence, bold.

© poormansdreams

Callum Featherstone

Starvation

Now, here, I forever wait.
On the horseback cusp, late.
Of a wish’s, yet, to come, truth.
An outlier,
fallen under hoof.
Broken, misspoken.

Eating other’s empty words.

But, I, green, unstill,
have black-sanguine dreams.
In my tossed,
turned,
undying sleep.
Of misfortune returning me,
unto this bitter Earth.
Where peace can’t take root,
only; rumble,
brief,
under warmonger’s boot.

© poormansdreams

Callum Featherstone

Daughter

embers demark old scars

carved

on oak soaked root’s battled heart
bark sharp piercing battles hard

never lost to a first win-
ning, brimming breath

aft submerged
then coming up
for air

loose from
the teethy grip
of grinning death


rock bottom cut me low
sore, sodden, against my row
r-oarful like broken paddles woe

when I reached out
from the drunken
drizzle’s drought

my dreams were all sunken
fried until my thoughts of;


You


holding my adult finger
in your tiny hand first-
born again
removing any, all and every doubt
in your beam my light for life
imbued

© poormansdreams

Callum Featherstone

Our Time, Took.

Did you miss me,
when you lost me,
in misty pockets,
called, Our Time?

I fumbled ’round,
in them, costly.

With child’s hands;

empty.

Like, the Frost, unhugged.


After never reading,
the “Love from Dad”,
in birthday cards,
you didn’t send me.

A blank, illegitimate page.
I wished, Our Time, to bless my age. 

With the Father, from the concept,
I saw, jealous-eyed, at school gates.

But, alas, your selfish ways,
took you; captive, to your grave.

Unknowing of the upset,
catalytic, to my purloined haze.

You stole from me a future,
where the superheroes, good,
take from the Miserly & Moocher.

Their green gave out by Robin Hood.

So, now, misty pockets by the Trent,
and nobbled Oaks in Sherwood,
hold me close in My Time spent;
taking steps; We never took.

© poormansdreams

Callum Featherstone

Branched Afree

I feel at home
among the trees.
And their omnipotence;
branched afree.
There’s flourishment in
their fawns and parakeets.
That creates to grow away;
greyed infinity.
A jump for life; cyclically.
Like, immortal leaves,
that fall froze in frost,
then, are flung by spring.
They, unashamedly,
leap upon sunny treen.
In uncaught, gasping vistas.
Not, lone, soiled views.
When seeds’ pure persistence,
reach up, in their air; for me and you.
Those strong roots
entwine and twister.
To come on home;
for precious scions;
to live and breathe
and bloom on through.

© poormansdreams

Callum Featherstone

Effacing Kaleidoscope


I wear an effacing
                  kaleidoscope
                       disguised with colours
                                shapes and patterns
                           on a visage coyly laced in
                                      fabric misanthrope
                        with unpulled woollies
             under disregarded eyeful shards
                         sawn and shattered.
                              I loathe the lens
                       that I’m purviewed through
                                               and the friends
                                          I can’t allude to
                     unpleasant is the ocean’s end
                                       of the spyglass
                                         I boo-hoo through
                              why did I try to pretend?
           I yearn for the courage to perform
                            an optical iconoclast
    and burn those judge’s visions scorned
              like tropical bombs ablast
        that carry and deliver me discerned
on currach-ed wings to peaceful shores.

© poormansdreams

Callum Featherstone

Step into Purple

A lonesome notion
dancing from my tongue
cross an awestruck ocean
where turquoise tears come from.

Solitude is draining
isolation feels like wrath
scarlet sweat a-raining
along a damson path.

Indigo and violet hues
make vanished footprints smile
when vivid reds and blues
coalesce for a while.

When we come together
to form a colour circle
our strides will call to heather
on stepping into purple.

© poormansdreams

Callum Featherstone

Frozen Clocks

A picture frame on a wall.
Beckons; past-tenses,
with, iced, wooden sprawl.
Fingers point, in, stiffness,
to, stillness.                        A frozen clock.
Affixed in time.
Whilst, snow-capped, mood-lit mounts,
lift, to, chill, set; digits, mouths and lenses.

A memory, encapsulated,
for, a nostalgic blizzard’s seige.
Had, held, on, snowballed; smiling faces.
Which, roll, bolder evocation, upon release.

Who, knew, preserved eyes,
hands and hairs, could speak?
Of, simpler; age, designs,
or, a widow’s peak?

Knowing, not matters, to our; frozen clocks.
Grown; ever-after, in, houred emotions, oft.