There is no air sweeter
Than in May’s cascade
Of colour, billowing
With purple ether
And the lightest elements
That plants might contrive.
Their sexual expression
In fragrant perfection
And tiers of pale lilac
Flowers given
Is the real ‘who’
Of who they really are.
© Ben Truesdale and distilledvoice, 2015.
They are masters of mixology,
Traders in cool.
They work
In the place to be: behind it.
They are it
With their controversial cocktails,
Fine wine wit
And work under loud rhythms.
The knife edge of fashion
Is theirs:
Firm hand shake
And contemporary hair,
Their tools
In the – look good,
Play hard – life
Of those
Who shake and stiiir.
© Ben Truesdale and distilledvoice, 2015
I am a sponge
Drinking through my porous
Skin, drinking energy.
The air, the sea, the fluid of reality
Washes through me
Like a fresh born wave.
I float. I am held. Warmth allows
Each cells place in the world,
Space for every identity.
I am a sponge, welcoming
With open arms
Life’s movement through me.
© Ben Truesdale and distilledvoice, 2015
To the garden I go,
To pace the concrete path
Bordered by greenery.
I examine the bud, then the tender
Shoot delicate in its unfold, changing
Each day imesaursbly. I witness the
Plant beings flush under the sun, their
Greenness quivering, their buoyancy
Mesmerised to reach for the high
Happy sky.
I step away for but a spell and to my
Returning astonishment I find a new
Garden, in place of the wonder I had
Left, yet more richly itself and bolder
In its expansive space.
The air too I breathe and find thankful
To my lungs, for the garden’s world is
Richly textual, a sensation in to which
I too unfold, as if all my wanting
Dreams of elsewhere heavens had
Been called home and yoked to the
Simple matter of a flower’s beautiful
Event.
Someone, a time ago, painted a
picture in the living stream of garden
beings. Their beautiful idea, via seed
and years of seasons, and the tender
touch of gardeners’, comes to me as
this:
A flush of crimson azalea.
And there a grotto in which generous
rhododendron blush and bloom in
roughs and frills.
And there peonies unclasped.
And there cherry pinks and white
petals lazily falling.
And there a dappled garden of
magnolia, like so many flamingos,
proud swans and poised egrets alight
each bough and branch.
And beneath in clusters: fritillary,
anemone and daffodils.
As if all were floating on a magical
mist of sunrise beginnings and first
dew drop breaths of times absolute
unfolding newness.
If I were an artist I might use this
fertile gift and call good thoughts
from fresh enriched wholesomeness
and wish them forward, so in a time
ahead, someone might find what I
have found and be likewise captive
and spellbound by nature’s gladness
to willingly adhere to the picture’s trellis.
© Ben Truesdale and distilledvoice, 2015
And inwardly I feel the heat of
Positive thought.
With one happy sentiment
I am warm and beautiful
And glad and grateful
For my life.
I feel better in the knowing of
Sunshine’s wealth,
Its gift in energy,
In endless stream of
Waveform or particle.
Its substance endlessly brought.
The infinite process of giving
Begun each new day
With dawn’s first light
– A slither of newness
Delivered as forerunner
Of all that will be
Doubtless and faithful –
Trust’s fine principle
Wholesome to my heart.
© Ben Truesdale and distilledvoice, 2015.
I breathe deeply
of the sweet morning air,
the scented air; touched and
touching, marked and marking,
impressed and impressing
all within the glorious space
in which I find myself alive.
This morning I am fragrance of
sunshine-warmed leaves and an
energetic April wind tussling the
combs of Scots pine. I am scent of
rain in the night, drying quickly in a
patch of light. I am blossom of early
flowering shrubs and molecules
rubbed close to the tulip’s ample
bosom. I am fresh as ever was the
world.
I breathe another grateful breath for
there is another one, and another
after that, waiting to be deliciously
inspired.
© Ben Truesdale and distilledvoice, 2015.
These words belong to us.
As I write these words they belong to me.
As you read them they belong to you.
I write them from a long time away.
You read them from an equal distance.
I feel satisfied as understanding reveals what I didn’t know.
You feel the feelings arriving to you.
If you see light: the light belongs to you.
If you see darkness: that too is yours.
If you see beauty: you are beautiful.
If you see ugliness: you have found your troll.
In the mirror between us on which my pen rests I see my face.
In the mirror between us on which your eyes rest you see your face.
These words belong to us.
© Ben Truesdale and distilledvoice, 2015.
In to the tentative spring
encroach magnolia flowers.
Some new, the nibs of fine pens
poised to inscribe heaven sent
possibilities.
Some full, festooning the leafless
branches as if a flock of glossy birds
had taken brief and perfect rest-bite.
Some old, their floppy bodies without
will to hold beyond a falling stars
burst and thrust and flair
in to momentary being.
© Ben Truesdale and distilledvoice, 2015.
The times have changed for poets.
Long gone are the notebooks piling
high with frustrated prose and lyrics,
dust bound and irrelevant, for thought
is fleeting as the modern world and
synapses now demand the instant in
the instant.
The poem was born for this. The
living form of a moment found, both
infinitesimally small and profoundly
long lasting. The supple being that a
poem is, thriving once more, rising to
the position it was supposed to be.
© Ben Truesdale and distilledvoice, 2015.
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