A dove coos
In the the bell tower,
Soft and throaty
And warm
For the chicks
Loved in to the nest.
–
The Scots pine,
Lofty in the graveyard,
Stands still and magnificent
Exuding presence,
Shining with silence
And oblivious of time.
–
The woodland,
Dotted with ewes
And skewed graves stones
Chatters
In warble and whistle.
In the canopy
Birds flap and flutter unseen.
Your incendiary words
Are the kindling
In the pyre
In which you stand.
Your hatred
Are the sparks
Falling into the hot oil
Smoking at your feet.
Excite the crowd with an inciting speech,
Encourage the rage of the rage-full
Until they are hot for blood and vengeance.
But ready yourself,
For what you give out
You’ll receive in measures multiplied.
The wounds you inflict
Are both the wounds on your soul
And the wounds
Your enemies
Will flay you with.
The morning is sweet
With the bird’s high ether,
Trill, and as full
As their abandon.
The air is warm and fragrant,
Infiltrated with wood smoke
And the earth’s low savour.
In a faraway glance,
The distance fades in to mist.
The morning in the breath is sweet.
All the various people toing and froing with bags pause as heads tilt to orange lights capitalising arrivals, departures, long lists of destinations, or mill about waiting to board.
A deisel thrums, fuming up the place, and a tannoy mumbles. The sun shines, diffused through skylights stained with pigeon droppings.
And in this intersecting place which is no real destination, I find happiness in the happening of reality unfolding, suddenly miraculous as if the being in me, my heart, had melted like butter in the dish next to the half eaten croissant disintegrating on a plate.
And as the guard blows a whistle my insides break from something solid to a free flowing fluid made of nothing but lightness and space and the joy of dying, where all paradoxes balloon inside until my skin seems a transitory coating, a boarder and yet an open door, a bubble’s width transparency, in which, and through the world I momentarily glide.
In the aching out
Of separation from the Source,
In that desperation
Of the body without,
Energy in that fraught moment
Disbelieved
And transformed into a mind robbing truth,
The inner sun eclipsed
Until all is gripped anxiety
And the thieving hunger
Drawn from soul
Reluctant in the giving.
In that moment,
In the knowing of that bitter biting absence,
That disconnected fatigue
And adrenal drift of dept,
Caffeine flowing
In the pressured veins,
In that moment
Of seeing the truth of untruth
And the untruth of lovelessness,
The love to flood the self is found,
And all that was
Is warmed
And looked upon
With tender eyes
That seed no malignancy,
Only the simple need
That needs
Parenting
By the blessed touch of grace.
As you recline on the freshly mown grass
With your eyes closed
And the sunshine
Warm on your face,
Tell me there is no heaven.
And with birdsong
In every angle of your ears,
And the sweet breath plentiful
And touched by the scents on the breeze,
Tell me again, there is no heaven.
Long gone the deep night
The quiet night
The night of magics
Whispered across the cosmos.
We make our own stars now,
Fill the world
With our blindness
Of blackness’s silent retreat.
©Ben Truesdale and distilledvoice, 2017
In chill October England
the African waits incongruous
by the grey concrete divide
of a duel carriageway.
He wears a leopard skin hat
and the curly white beard of
an old man. In his hand,
a tool dangles like a nonchalant
machete. He has bare feet
and baggy shorts and has
come from the woods,
filled with cool heartbeats
of high latitudes. He hears
as he heard in his homeland:
the voices are different
but still voices, greener
and more tidal, sleeping
for half the year at least.
Yet his heart beats as full
of blood as when his calloused
feet scuffed red, dry earth,
and though all through his
eyes is a paler brother,
less rich, quelled
rather than vibrant,
the murmurings he feels
through his soles
are so similar in vibration
he cannot help but
accept the meek light
as home, and breathe in
the arrival of happiness.
copyright distilledvoice & Ben Truesdale
Slow on dormant
Short day
And soil
Chilled stasis,
Yet latched
To the axis
Of the earth
That will
With solstice turn,
Unwind with light
And spiral out,
First shoot,
Then leaf,
Then the flower’s magnitude,
Until
In swelling apex
And full, green flush
Of potential’s plumpness,
All the tangible world
Expresses its ripeness
And rests gladly
In energy’s hands.
© Ben Truesdale and distilledvoice, 2015
Only the cool,
Faraway sun
Diminishes
Age
With last autumnal
Tungsten
Spectrum,
Burnishing
Dying leaves
In beautiful flare.
© Ben Truesdale and distilledvoice, 2015
