Month: September 2015

Beach Shack

~ distilledvoice ~ 2 Comments

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As if
The sea
Had constructed it
With surge
That brought the plank,
The net,
The wave rotted rope,
Tattered and thready
And bone white
From the salt sun:
A pile
High on the tide line
As stark and dry
As the loose feathers
And rounded drift wood
And the seaweed
Crisp as rind:
Debris ground by wave
On the pebble beach,
Burned and bleached
By elements
Constant rotation
And then so loosely arranged
By calloused
And fishline hands,
Ruddy and sun shanked
And work worn
To a soft disintegration.

© Ben Truesdale and distilledvoice, 2015

Half The Story

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Beyond the trees
In the blue reach
Across the strait,
To the jutting promontory
And the rise
Of distant mountains

We find only half the story

For the near pines exude
Pungent alkaloid sap
And the ratchets
Of cicadas
Percuss in the needle canopy,
And the air
Holds the salt sweat
Of a seaborne breeze
And the moist weight
Of ozone’s far flung memory.

© Ben Truesdale and distilledvoice, 2015

Fruiting Bodies

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Fruiting bodies
Like fleshy fingers
Examining the other world,
Of air and light.

And beneath
In the thready net,
Mycelium reach
Through the body

Of the earth
Drawing nutrient
From the discarded clothes
Of everything

Let loose
And shed.
The raw components
Once more

Spent
In transition
Of beneficence
Reinvigorated.

© Ben Truesdale and distilledvoice, 2015

Root Question

~ distilledvoice ~ 2 Comments

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No less
The channelled stream,
Roots
Pool slowly
Over a hundred years.

To our fast eyes
They seem still.
But to the stone
Looking on,
They are a mass
Of writhing tentacles,
Searching water source
Like whiskered mole’s
Thirsty earthward
Push and burrowing.

Are these living pipes
And strands of cellulose
The captors of water’s
Slip and silver
Or are the trees
The means
By which water
Yearns to alter state,
Transpirate
To lighter, airy
Agitation?

Are my eyes
But liquid desire
To see,
In beauties reflection,
The flow
Working through
The All
And everything?
Am I served
Or do I serve
The blood
Of the fluid earth?

© Ben Truesdale and distilledvoice, 2015

Flows Over Eons

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Flows
Over eons
Work stone,
Fluid polishing
And gullying
The rock,
In summer trickle
Winter lock
And spring gush,
Carving bowles
And scoops
And sockets
In edifice
So cool pools
Dwell transparent
In blueness,
And shimmer
Soda bubble fresh
Where cataracts
Endlessly burrow.

© Ben Truesdale and distilledvoice, 2015

The Low Angle Sun

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The stream breathes
Cool and damp
To the foliage hues,
Moist to the hollow
And bank,
And Shadowed
By the lateness of the hour.

Only in a patch
Of borrowed light
Do poplars glow
Golden on every leaf,
Their high thoughts fluttering
In the low angle sun.

© Ben Truesdale and distilledvoice, 2015

Southern French Village

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The boulangerie
Opens its sleepy eye
To the bird tweeting village
And looks upon
A once neat boulevard
Aged to a trunk lumpy
Old woman, clucking
Pleasantries as she ambles
With white crusty bread
To her shutter clad dwelling
Limp on its hinges
But crookedly beautiful
With time.

Her garden is put to work:
A crop of gnarled tomatoes
Fruiting in pastel lanterns,
Grapes yellowing
And freckled on the vine
And a font
Where honey oozes
Through the faucets
Of voluptuous figs,
Loosened and falling
As purses unclasped
And relaxing
Amid the gravel
In which herbs muster volatile
In air sweetened
To Provençal notes
And excited to fragrance
By a brush past
Or even the sun
Hot in the radiating stones.

© Ben Truesdale and distilledvoice, 2015

Storm

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Miasma condenses
Heavy blue
In the brooding
Underbellies
As if the cauldron
Were full
At a point of boiling
And might only ease
In manifestation
Of tearful rain
And reservoir’s
Releasing cascade.

© Ben Truesdale and distilledvoice, 2015