She has highlights in her hair,
The butter kiss
Of summer light
And fragrant breeze
Painted there.
But it’s her thoughts
That wear
The gold
Of lifted mood
And tussle
Beautiful
In halcyon
Of lofty space
And blue sky
Incantation,
Where shine
Is gloss
Upon the body
And soul
Is spirit
Reaching through matter.
© Ben Truesdale and distilledvoice, 2015
When it wakes
It hears the flowers
Call in scents.
It desires
The ultra violet
Of colours
And the deep
Well of love
In which nectar pools
And collects.
When it wakes
It thinks of nothing else
But the warmth on the wing
And the burrowing head
Thoughtless in the dream
Of pollinating.
When it wakes
It be itself
And thinks
Not a thought
Outside of its being.
© Ben Truesdale and distilledvoice, 2015
The thought of the flower,
Though unripe
Cannot be held back,
For the surge
Of magic
Invisibly
Pushes
And reaches
And strives
To be
Inexorably
And irrepressibly
Expressed.
© Ben Truesdale and distilledvoice, 2015
The sun
Inspires the light
In other things
To give
The yellow art
Of love
That is
The self same
Heart’s
Eternal burn
And offering.
© Ben Truesdale and distilledvoice, 2015
First scents of autumn
Reach
From the must loam,
Impregnate the misty morn
With brown crinkled signs
And fruit
Slack and ready
For plucking.
The vigour of pale youth
Was a lifetime
Under the high sun.
Now the third season
Ripens and plumps,
Relaxes the stiffness
Of purpose
And loosens
To fermenting nap and doze
As the day shortens
And the leaves
Age to crispness,
While wasps fly drunk
On the sweet juice
Of fruit fall
And the billowing glut
To come.
© Ben Truesdale and distilledvoice, 2015
Fishermen haul in their net,
Bring in the unseen dimension
While fair skinned tourists
Haul in a delightful authenticity.
The net is wriggly with silver reflex,
Scales shed as a last desperate breath
Bloodies the gills, and tourists snap
In their own reflex to capture the dying light.
It soon quells as each silver fish
Relinquishes and stills on the beach.
Fishermen tidy their nets and
Tiny fry, caught but unwanted
Dry on the sea of sand,
Embalmed in the photograph
In which tourists preserve,
Just as the fishermen salt
And lay their catch in the sun.
© Ben Truesdale and distilledvoice, 2015
Unafraid of the white
Rind
Of sweet fat
Wound around the ham joint,
He cuts a handsome slice,
Layers it against a wedge of cheese
And closes the well buttered bun,
Offering it
Like it was a generous food,
As rich and fulfilling
As cream atop the milk
And the wheat’s
Golden milling
To finest workable powder.
He will die a good death
Before his mind
Thinks these precious gifts
Are otherwise
Or contra to
The land’s harvest
And man’s festival
In receiving its pleasure
And its goodness.
© Ben Truesdale and distilledvoice, 2015
So slowly
Yet the years pass by
And old roads
Enveloped
By the seasons fruit
And fallen leaves
Brought down
To the carpeting ground
Are each year
Millimetres closer
To the countryside,
As new formed earth,
Like age rings
Of the tree,
Mark the cycle
By their regular encroachment.
It is thus
That our histories
Are buried.
And time is immeasurable
As it flows
Sometimes slowly
And other times
Like a swift tide,
Our ancestors
Sunk in the mud
Of generations,
As the millimetres
Have built
To the platform
On which
Life now resides
And finds us alive,
Upon the skin
Of now happening
But with deep roots
Drawing and sucking
On the layered sediments
Of history
And all those
Dead ideas.
© Ben Truesdale and distilledvoice, 2015
i is liack
d rapper
in d cloves,
slouchin offa me,
all shadey, liack,
coz
i is under ground
in me finkin
coz, i got dat
fuz
of d weed
on me, liack
and
me liack d gangster
doin d deals
on d street
and d back street, rite
but i as this secret, rite
i is from d middle class
ma mom
she liack,
is whiat
and munches dem olives
and liack go down
waitrose, and liack, votes
an all dat
but don’t tell no one, rite
coz we tite,
rite.
© Ben Truesdale and distilledvoice, 2015
The air is moist
And humid heavy
But fresh
With new rain,
Still dampening down
Still weighing
Each leaf droopy,
Each bended stalk
Gravity bound.
Some flower heads
Are dew drunk
Lively, plush
And open eyed,
As perfect
As purity
In droplet spheres
Expressed
Upon the petals body.
But some are dashed
To autumnal fall:
The rose
Shaggy on its swollen hip,
Curling
And fading tears
Scattered in the falling.
It’s as if
The night could
Reach beyond
It’s dark boundary:
Wet finger tips
Invading the day
Or morning, at least:
Its species
Conveyed in fluid:
The slugs
The snails
Putting down
Their silver trails
For the sun’s
Open touch
And glitter
In awakening.
© Ben Truesdale and distilledvoice, 2015
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