Why I Write

Because I am barren land:
And though
I can hold the pen,
I have but sand
In my hand,
For thoughts are angular
Without the yolk
Of the inner whisper.

And then
In the desert,
The sudden
Incomprehensible
Pale green shoot,
Come from nowhere,
Cracking the carapace
And shielded exterior,
Breaking ground.

And there,
Blood
To the lips
Of the stone
And all is shifted
To flows of liquid,
And the hand
Joins thoughts
And the leafs unfold,

Becoming one
In the curling letters
And the writing’s sound,
And the circular forms
Of life
Encountered
And rising
To the mind’s
Beautiful fore.

© Ben Truesdale and distilledvoice, 2015

Siblings In Mind

For all of us
Who write
There is kinship
In the pen
And a pleasing
Camaraderie of spirit.

Yet such
Are the plethora
Of minds
That being this
Is like belonging
To a wide
And diverse continent.

The best
Is when understanding
Traverses time
And space,
And a bond
Of likeness
Joins

In selfness
Expressed:
Like looking in to the mirror
And seeing the real
Familiar
Of a brother
Or a sister,
Newly found.

© Ben Truesdale and distilledvoice, 2015

Poem For Poets

The poet
Can risk exposure
Of the naked heart,
For his voice speaks
In dreams of magic,
And no closer words
Are so thinly clothed
Than in the music
Of his being
And the being of his life.

And so he must
Speak his truth
In the written word
And carve
From feelings felt,
Self portraits
Of metamorphosed art,
And tell
The world
Of his only life,
As only he can tell it.

© Ben Truesdale and distilledvoice, 2015.

Artists Are One

So many yearning
For the artists life,
Each and every one of us
Posting our dreams
To the greater dream
In the outer dream of the internet.

But I am roused.
I am roused for I am one in many
As you are one in many.
We speak the same language
And slip stream on the same energy,
Surf the lip of love
That curls endlessly on.

We will not drown in clamour.
There are not too many
For we are the many in the mind
And the mind is one.

And the one
Is wellpool
Of richness, integrity
And Infinity anew:

Anew
As each one of us
Lives closer
To the who

We really are.

© Ben Truesdale and distilledvoice, 2015.

Writer’s Block

At first
It’s hard as metal.

Or is it
More like hard cheese

Or maybe butter
Straight from the fridge.

No,
It was left in the sun

And now
As silky oil,

Runs in rivulets,
Clarified and melted

To the yellow-shine
Of a different entropic state.

© Ben Truesdale and distilledvoice, 2015.

Freshly Pressed

Nothing as delicious
As the idea’s arrival
At the pen scratch
And nib of newly unfolded time.

Here is creativity
At its cutting edge.
New and fresh as dew
At risen light,

As momentary
And transitorily alive,
For a spell’s duration,
Before soon subsided

And dimmed by
Pristine light’s creation
And the joy of thoughts,
Freshly Pressed.

© Ben Truesdale and distilledvoice, 2015.

My iPhone And The Cloud

In to the phone’s world
I look,
So varied
So shiny
So new.

In to this
I download my memory,
My images,
My thoughts.

And all the questions
I might ask myself,
Both profound
And mundane,
Away I merrily Google.

The world
In one way widened,
And yet
One way closed

As life shifts
Ever nearer,
Ever closer
To the outside mind
Of the irresistible cloud.

© Ben Truesdale and distilledvoice, 2015.

Point Of View

The sum
Of all that you are:
Your loves,
Your hurts,
Your truths, beliefs, perceptions,
All that you have learned.
Your dreams,
Your feelings,
Your heart,
And all the spanned divides.

Remember
There is no argument:
Another’s point of view
Is an equation
Unknowable as a distant star,
With strands of reason and belief
Meshed and matted
As the synapse brain
Is thus complexly wired.

There is no argument
For personal right
Is derived from what arrives
To the matter of the mind,
And in that
We are all paradoxically different
Yet siblings side by side.

© Ben Truesdale and distilledvoice, 2015.