sleep

Callum Featherstone

the Dark.

Searching —
in;
the Dark.

Behind closed
eyelids.
Where silhouettes
become
equine arced
horizon’s
wide bids.
To dressage
unforgets.
Canter shadows
in
the moments
of our syne.
Incantations
of the
kin
we left
behind.
Coalescencing
with
the patterns
come
the night.
Inconspicuous
are guises
called, ‘the Dark’.
Behind those
closing, tired
eyes.
I gallop
towards a blink
in
ever’s memory.
I shall not
cower
at pinks, greys, and blacks
linked together;
emery.
When I brush
and tangle
with my thoughts
in
the mane
I charge on forth.
To the lushing
greenly meadow
of our
reverie.
This is
happening.
Yet, has already
happened.
From the start.
And, too, will happen.
At the end.

This is, truly, seeing.
This is, truly, being.

Searching —
in;
the Dark.

© poormansdreams

Callum Featherstone

Carnelian Jewel

Nighttime shadow thieves stole my gleam
Once upon a cerulean Moon.

They bobbed and weaved awash with greed.

With my one carnelian jewel.

A crimson and green festoon
Was it’s bed of leaves.

The sweetest berries I exhumed
To give comfort, ease.

While guile in eyes of theirs did loom.

My jewel is not a gemstone rare
Or, a precious piece of art.

But it means a lot to me in care
Because it is my heart.

Without it, I wander in aimless air.

Without it, I’m lost, apart.

Nighttime shadow thieves
Alight their maddest schemes
With the gleam
Tore from my chest away.

By spite in Adder’s teeth
Bites tight a damedest deed
In my dreams
Scorned poison left decays.

I’m weary, and I’m battle torn
From eerie, bent, grappled horns
That they used to pierce my slumber.

Unclearly in gravelled spawn
Their fearly, well-travelled cause
Cast grey ooze that steered me under.

I returned each night to retrieve my jewel
My torso agape and open
I was urged to fight with those twilight fools
That yearned to forsake me broken.

But I turned from spite and their actions cruel
I know they take from me a token
Of brilliant light which signifies renewal
Like, the beating ache in hearts awoken.

And, now, I see
Why they took my heart
For their eyes, they could not open.

Nor, their mouths feel light unspoken.

So, I let them keep
My piece of luck.

My carnelian jewel…

…we, together; brighten; darkness; stolen.

© poormansdreams

Callum Featherstone

The Beggar’s Dream

A lotus flower, closed leaves upon a lonely hour for light reprieve, before the dawn.

The gloaming, sour. Shows a grief-struck lowly glower. Sore, in sights retrieved. Pre-mourning awe.

All the while, a moonlit smile casts its cheddar gleam across the lake.

As wet beguile, twists yellow spirals, on blue beggar’s dreams of cheese & hake.

It’s in these Isles, of fantasies fine whiles,
the edge of streams, hopscotch landscapes.

Clambered stiles and climber’s trials, tribulate tributaries, where rivered oceans spake.

When dawn is broken, we’ll have never spoken
but the fondest memory in mind, always, stays.

So, inside a beggar’s dreams of the inbetween, there is no foot above to keep downtrodden.

There, lessers leap over the successor’s seats, and the throne is cut like a rug, from its top to its very bottom.

Justice done by those who suffered under its rotten, deadly feet.

Devoid of liberty, enough to eat, cold, and left forgotten.

Remembered for goodness’ sake,
begged dreams of cheese & hake,
in my mind’s hungry pockets, often.

© poormansdreams

Callum Featherstone

A Timeless Land

Cartwheeling
went the grand-
father clock’s
arms & hands.

Along each ceiling
above the strands
of unstarts unstops
in A Timeless Land.

Where waters reach
wrapping wisteria around
themselves in every vine
a wetter version of a minute.

There, solsticed leaves
untrapped grow free & proud
& houred grapes squeeze syned
durations to taste like winely spirit.

Spans do not run late
& do not stand still
for they have no limbs
nor face to tell.

We mere mortals
with time to kill
the enchanted incant-
ation of our spell;

“What time is it?!”

“Make sure you’re
there on time!!”

In nighttime’s journey
to A Timeless Land
we don’t hear the clang-
ing bells that chime
empty questions
or commands.

You are no longer
a slave to master Time
when eyes do close
with slumber’s sand
your soul there is whole
ev’ry second of your while.

© poormansdreams

Callum Featherstone

Slumber’s Crashing Visions

Slumber’s crashing visions, green-
go-under, Past’s collisions. Where,
I, sleepily, bump — broken, sev-
ered. Detachment, he comes, speedily.
Avoids, picking up, my limely, shrapnel pie-
ces. He unputs me, bilious, back together.

Wreckage strewn in metallic, scurvy sweat
drops. They shine on a motorwaying
shroud. In straw bedcloth’s revving night.
Slumber’s crashing visions, never wait for me
to cross. They’re laughing amber’s crunched
derision. At my tunnel’s, citrus face, aloss.

Crimson trickles: traffic lights; all red, running from, scarlet
sharp-brake eyes.

Callum Featherstone

Lost, properly

Another

night lost –

to this infernal game

of sleep. Another light lost –

to this internal

flaming

heap.

Another day, found; wanting,

ever-seeking, left

behind. Suffer

darkness;

unfounded: daunting,

ever-creeping, when in mind.

Another time or another place,

Another line on another face,

Another calm before the storm,

Another baby to be born.

Another life is another death,

Another fight for another breath,

Another want, another need,

Another plot – for which to bleed.

Another jab, another hook,

Another play – not by the book,

Another lie becomes the truth,

Another, “why?” crushed under boot.

Another step in lands of Hinter,

Yet, another long, bleak winter,

One more liberty carelessly lost,

Bitterly frozen by piercing frost.

Another

toll cost – to

the extending tarmac

adam. Another soul lost – to

the never-ending

blackened

chasm.

Another scarlet debtor, found;

humanity is justly,

repossessed.

Smothered faces

turn raging red, thrusting,

brutality; into Robin’s breast.

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

Requiem

Remembering; slumber.

A forgotten number.

The subtraction

of dreamy interaction.

An ever-falling bungee jumper.

Remembering; rest.

De-stress? Distressed.

Unanswered calls

by sunken eyeballs.

To close their quest.

Remembering; peace

Of mind. At ease.

Stood at attention

for every mention

of failure to sleep.

Remembering; dreams.

Coins in a fountain gleam.

Now each and every

are but a memory.

Copper tears that stream.