Intent on the new leaf
They hunt
By gliding night,
Sensing every
Quivering first bud,
Every glimpse
Of a shoot
Emerging
From the earth’s
Protective coat.
And in slow,
Slow pounce
They are voracious
In their work
And in their appetite,
Stripping their prey
To the tattered
And skeletal
Ragged flags
Of a former glory.
© Ben Truesdale and distilledvoice, 2015
Foremost
Is the tidal law,
For it is ever commanding
And in some ways stronger
Than the day’s diurnal yaw
And opening and closing eye.
Half his time
In soporific muse
And daydream,
With his cheek
Wet to the grey glutin
Of sediments
And the cool sulphur stink
Of mud layered greasy.
There are birds in his daydream;
Seagulls and waders patterning
The slick shiny surfaces
With criss cross footprints.
If only he could raise himself up!
But his body is limp to the rock
And deflated on the mud flat.
But then on the turning tide:
First joy to his lifted toe tips,
In salt water push.
And then to his green weed calves,
And then his body
And his weighty sargasso clothes.
Soon the daydreams seep away
And all is bluegreen oxygen
And the free thoughts
Of kelp
Suspended in the water column.
He is fully awake
When his bladder rack fringe
Lifts from his barnacle face
And shimmers and depicts
The current flow
And the playfulness
Of water’s irregularity.
Now he breathes
His water-lung
Saltwater full,
And is bright in his octopus eye,
Excited in saline energy,
Full as the moon,
Full as Equinox:
His mind
Teaming with ideas
Of fish
And aquatic snails
And colourful sponge
And the jewels of anemones,
And the bright eyed shrimp
And the lobster’s wariness
And the majestic conger eel,
And the multitude nameless
Who peak tentative from beneath:
All of which he collects
With silver brown hands
And algal finger-leaves,
Adhering them
To his stone skin
And the nooks and crevices therein,
Making himself beautiful
And decorative.
The under-garden home,
His living benthic cloak,
Gathered up
And to the underworld
Unfurled,
Given
To his legacy
And grandchildren,
In wet plethora
And numerous cold blooded.
© Ben Truesdale and distilledvoice, 2015
https://distilledvoice.com/2015/07/20/father-greenseed-and-his-work/
You know those
Family friends
Whose house
Nestles deep
Within a rural village;
Where time follows
Its own wholesome course
And wellies are never far
From being worn
On Sunday walks
Through fields
And quiet footpaths;
Where afternoons
Are your own,
Comfortable in arm chairs
Or at the long lunch
Where the food
Is as fresh as the company
And somehow tastier
For being plucked
From gardens near
And in harvest’s
Flush of giving.
Well,
This is us.
In our thoughts
And in our place,
And in our home
From home.
© Ben Truesdale and distilledvoice, 2015
Dedicated to and inspired by Pig Hotel Nr Bath http://www.thepighotel.com
Drunk in the thistle head,
Bees become
Comforted
In the leisure
Of the drug
Emitted like scent
And colour.
No longer
The wary leg
Raised
And body tilted
In defensive
‘Keep away’
For heads
Burrow deep
As forgetting.
And what was happy work
Is just the blissful dream
Of being
Carefree and abundant,
And being so very drunk
On the utter taste of love.
© Ben Truesdale and distilledvoice, 2015
Inspired and for la petite maison bijoux http://grahy.fr
When he manifest
He chose
A chestnut vest
And trousers
Laddered in hues
Of orange, yellow and black.
And for a hat,
He took the best
In finest elysium gold.
© Ben Truesdale and distilledvoice, 2015
In the purple world
Beetles congregate
To Perform
Minuscule ablutions,
Perhaps hold
Precise insect conversations,
Behave
As if they knew
Exactly what to do
With their lives.
© Ben Truesdale and distilledvoice, 2015
In the air around
In her warm breath
In her aura.
In the space
That she owns,
Crossed by no other.
In her own land,
The country
Of her soul’s endeavour
There are butterflies
In swarms,
In every multicolour
And species creed.
They are
The myth of her lightness,
For on invisible strings
She is anchored
To every flutter
And delicate wingbeat,
And held aloft
As any lucky cloud
Is mystical
In the wind’s drift
And by the sky delivered.
It’s as if
They were part of her
And her body
Were just food stuff
On which the insects
Come to fill and feast:
Her heart
– A chalice –
Nectar deep,
The sweet centre
Of a spirit flower
That she is
In the ether-other
Beyond the solid and tangible
Regulations of the
World we live.
© Ben Truesdale and distilledvoice, 2015
Because I am barren land:
And though
I can hold the pen,
I have but sand
In my hand,
For thoughts are angular
Without the yolk
Of the inner whisper.
And then
In the desert,
The sudden
Incomprehensible
Pale green shoot,
Come from nowhere,
Cracking the carapace
And shielded exterior,
Breaking ground.
And there,
Blood
To the lips
Of the stone
And all is shifted
To flows of liquid,
And the hand
Joins thoughts
And the leafs unfold,
Becoming one
In the curling letters
And the writing’s sound,
And the circular forms
Of life
Encountered
And rising
To the mind’s
Beautiful fore.
© Ben Truesdale and distilledvoice, 2015
Our paths
Seem so solid,
Yet with the seasons
Even the most meagre
Stone strewn soil
Grows vast
With fertile grasses,
And weeds
Rampantly colonising.
Our roads
Are temporarily cuts
In the swathes
Of verdant magic,
That will one day
Draw closed
To absorb our footprints
In the luscious gloom beneath,
As if the soil
Was never once
Touched or trodden
Or even impacted
By the swish
And speed
Of our passing by.
.
© Ben Truesdale and distilledvoice, 2015
Time
Comforts us
With its work
In sweeping curves
And the pebbles
Refined
To grain equality,
Sorted
In gradual conformity
To the long shore laws
Of water physical
And air scouring
And light,
Daily ultra violet.
As the globe spins
On smooth mathematics
And physics
Impregnated with a spark
Of living light
Beauty
Just
Happens.
© Ben Truesdale and distilledvoice, 2015
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