It’s just the same as it always was
Except now
I can read your every unedited thought
And see
Your self image
So much more clearly.
© Ben Truesdale and distilledvoice, 2015
art
For The Racists
Worse than hatred;
The blanking hand
Demises those blanked
And withheld acknowledgment
Disappears the subject of a self
As if it were a ghost
Of no magnitude or apparentcy.
A crime to be blanked
And yet also,
Crime in the one who blanks,
For the racist cauterises his own
Wholesome self in the violence
Of his denying
And lies as injured as his victim
In the victimhood of his division:
No longer seeing all the beautiful
Faces who are the whole of him.
Half his heart he disowns and cuts
From his being, settling in to the
Fraction of the self remaining,
So colourless and drained,
And denied of life’s real meaning
In the face of otherness rejected.
© Ben Truesdale and distilledvoice, 2015
In The Rose
Nose first
And all the body
Thrust after it,
For I go
Gladly to the rose’s
Soft flesh,
Plunge myself within
To be enveloped
Wholly in petal silk
And scents of dreams,
Sweet as the loveliest
Material or lovers skin
Impregnated with sunshine,
Fine nectars, oils and essences.
For a moment I am lost,
Dipped as I am
In relaxation
Of all but the only sense in the world:
The pure thing found
In candied whorl
Of the rose’s
Delicate unwind
And fragrant shimmering.
© Ben Truesdale and distilledvoice, 2015
Divinity
Not in the stone
Or the frame of the flowers,
Not in the lawn or the trees
Or the generous borders.
Only in the eye
Who perceives,
The I
Who perceives.
© Ben Truesdale and distilledvoice, 2015
In The Muted Blues
In the muted blues
And metal greys
Of sea and skyscape ranging
Wide and windless rippled,
Purple flowers
Strew the tussock,
Guiding light footsteps
Through the hummock greens
To the ways of the coastal path.
© Ben Truesdale and distilledvoice, 2015
Stone Is Stone
Stone is stone
To the snail and the lichen:
A road and a home.
Only we
Go beyond the obvious,
Dedicating towers
To our gods
And philosophies.
© Ben Truesdale and distilledvoice, 2015
It Is Given
There but a breath from here
Flows the ever stream
Of loveliness.
There in the body
Flows its warm mist,
Delightful as spring energy.
It says without words.
It says
If listened to or ignored.
It says nevertheless
And cares not for being heard
Or even acknowledged.
It is gift
For it is given without clause,
No distinction
Is Required, demanded or extorted.
It is a gift for all,
Without division
Or judgement imposed.
All may quench their thirst:
Worthy or unworthy
Good or bad as they come.
It just comes
For it is given to all.
© Ben Truesdale and distilledvoice, 2015
Our Only Real Ownership
Our only real ownership
Is that
found in our senses:
The life owned by our eyes
The tingle on our tongue
The ear’s interpreted vibration
The dream encountered by the nose
The skin’s sensitive envelopment
And emotion’s yoking centrepiece.
All else
Beyond what is physically ours
Is but borrowing and stewardship.
© Ben Truesdale and distilledvoice, 2015
Point Of Power
For energies to coalesce
And be somehow directed.
© Ben Truesdale and distilledvoice, 2015
In The Garden Of Rooms
One enters through a gate in an old stone wall. There is a peaceful lawn surrounded by herbaceous boarders leaning against wisteria capped, flint studded masonry. Clematis crowns in places: in pinks and white cataracts and green, gushing falls. Shrubs flower in every corner. Great blowsy peonies glimpse from their folds and white finery. Bluebells peep from the underworld and ferns cling to high crevices. At the far end of the sky ceilinged room is an opening in the brickwork. One enters via stepping stones tattooed with the slow engravings of lichens.
In the next room the light is altered and flowers are blue and purple in hue and temperament. Scents are heavy and cool. An archway of twisted and gnarled wood is split by the epoch of vine held flowers: fists unclenched and offering nectars on tiny, fleshy instruments: stamens, pollen clad and bumbled at by the benediction of bees.
In the next room there is the deep scent of peace held in a nook and grotto of silence. More are the plant beings. More is the air and humming of insects in nectarous impulse.
In the next there is a goddess of love who owns the still moment and offers more to those who dally in the mood of her wishes.
In the next there are doorways to secrets, and paths to hidden worlds and spaces clean as streams born new from bubbling wellsprings.
In the next there are deeper things for the mind to fathom.
In the next there is the heart of the world and a fountain to which the lips might sip life’s generous bequeathment and know yet more doorways to the fragrant beyond.
In the next room…….
And in the next…….
distilledvoice 