Out of the mouth
Via the air
To the ears.
Imagination plays its part
In conception
Of ideas,
Of how
And why.
And like that
The view point
Expands,
Resembles a fact
Becomes a bit like a truth,
Ever Growing
In to something like
The real thing.
And then
Once cooked,
Once fiddled,
Once deceived
It spews out dogmatic
And unrestrained,
Exits
As it is born,
The truth formed,
The truth made,
The fact ejected
Out of the mouth….
© Ben Truesdale and distilledvoice, 2015
What blindness is this
That sees
The mind
Creative
On the page
Even where the ink
Is absent and forgetting?
For surely
I see the words
Formed perfect
On the paper
With these eyes
Of mine.
Yet others
Find
In the form,
Omissions
And lack
Where my mind
Has conjured
And bridged
And leapt
Across the cracks.
And if
In my blindness
I still see
Words fully formed
And correctly ended,
Then what
In the real world,
Beyond the pen,
Have I also
Made perfect?
What gaps
In reality
Have I
Fabricated?
What have my eyes
Seen
In the jurisdiction
Of belief,
Unreal to all but me
Who paints
Stencils and stained glass
On lenses
Through which
I look
In order
I might see
The things
I wish
Rather than
What is actually present.
© Ben Truesdale and distilledvoice, 2015
The world spins
On instant access
Where secrets
Divulge
In the second of their conception
And news
Burns like star-fall
And dies as quickly
To the black
And old.
And time,
Shackled workhorse
To the mind
Careers
As never should
It fall precious
Past uncaring hand
And fingers barely touching,
Racing
Itself to panting
Wreck and ruin:
All of what it’s worth
Spent
In a flash
Of fast food
And capitalism,
Memorised
Even before
Its moment
Of occurrence
And physical birth.
The future
Travelling
To the past
But heart bypassed
So as not to happen
In the now
At all.
© Ben Truesdale and distilledvoice, 2015
Now
With reluctant light
The wet earth
Breathes at last,
Breaks its dry fast
And puts
The eager tendril
Of must and spore rot,
Conveyed in shadow-damp,
To the dismantlement.
For what falls –
The withered leaf,
The stem, no longer turgid,
The petals browning,
– Mould will impregnate
And make an earthly scent
In season rich lament
And sad fermentation
Of soil and soul bound things
Untethered and unfettered
In their sinking sleep
And matters cool release
From forms previous.
© Ben Truesdale and distilledvoice, 2015
From wooden boxes
Her land
Unclasps
Still warm,
Knobbly tomatoes,
Imperfectly formed
But flush
With the colour of the sun.
Likewise, the just picked grapes,
Dusty with botrytis,
Contain the same
Sun-drunk quality.
And the wine
Decanted
With a funnel
In to re-used plastic containers
Is matter of fact,
Poured for its sweetness
And personality’s distillate,
Not for any labelled
Contradiction
Or propulsion
Of aggressive advert.
With a shrug of her shoulders
The woman says the only thing
She need ever say
To anyone:
‘I am, as I am.’
© Ben Truesdale and distilledvoice, 2015
Delight in liquid sea-green,
Washing pebbles
In transparent equality.
Solvent clear as air
And cool
To bathe the blood
And salve the sun,
Hot on the body.
Perhaps a metaphor
For transition
To other energy:
The ever blue
When we
Were nothing
In the seamless
Beginnings
When freedom
Was our own,
As was
Fluent, weightless buoyancy.
© Ben Truesdale and distilledvoice, 2015
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
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
In to liquid
I slip sensual,
My skin
To the blue meniscus
Dipped and coated
And consumed
Until forgetting
Of boarders.
My being
Whole blended
In blue amnion
Aquiver
With silver light
And beams
Of aqua marine
Shimmering in electric fathoms.
© Ben Truesdale and distilledvoice, 2015
When it wakes
It hears the flowers
Call in scents.
It desires
The ultra violet
Of colours
And the deep
Well of love
In which nectar pools
And collects.
When it wakes
It thinks of nothing else
But the warmth on the wing
And the burrowing head
Thoughtless in the dream
Of pollinating.
When it wakes
It be itself
And thinks
Not a thought
Outside of its being.
© Ben Truesdale and distilledvoice, 2015
distilledvoice 