Surf rises
To the mirror lip sun,
A moment before
White thrall,
Loose of integrity
And slack
Of reer-up and shore call,
Pales the deep blue
To a lighter shade.
Near the rocks
Haze moistens the air
With sticky salt
Greasy on every surface
And root grasping trees
Survey the consistent pulse
From high, squinting promontories
Stark against the prevailing horizons
And the sea changing sky.
copyright 2016 Ben Truesdale & distilledvoice
From the prevailing west
Cyclonic lows
Push
Wet faced
Across
The foot scuffed
Rough,
Browning upon
The boundary rock,
Greying the low sky
And darkening every
Thoughtful perspective
To a buffeted corner
Of the wind swept mind.
© Ben Truesdale and distilledvoice, 2015
Sun skinned
Boys
Delight
In the day’s final hour,
Frolicking on the jetty
And blue beside,
Wrestling each other,
Daring, jumping in and out,
Diving from the rocks,
Shouting language
From their boisterous mouths:
Dipping their matte skin
In Mediterranean
And coming out
Anointed in the gold
Of liquid
Painted by
By the sun’s
Last moment.
© Ben Truesdale and distilledvoice, 2015
In a tumbledown landscape
Above the sea,
Olive trees flutter silver green
In patches of thin earth
And scattered stone,
Scraped into a rough field.
Over the wall
A hobby of a vineyard,
Draws deep-root thirsty
For its plump infants
Suckling on the vine,
And the sun
Polishes them
To succulence
And sweet raisin wine.
And in the fallen down next,
Fennel grows rampant
And unkempt
Spicing with heady aniseed.
And in the shabby next
There is lavender on the wind
Emollient with herbaceous strands,
Mixing freely
With the airborne personality
Of wild thyme
And the pheromonal
Purple flowers of rosemary.
© Ben Truesdale and distilledvoice, 2015
From within
Dark passageways
The full turquoise
Of salt water
Reveals itself.
© Ben Truesdale and distilledvoice, 2015
In a limestone cauldron
Narrow eying
The sea
And the whole arc
Of the sun’s duration,
In a slip
And steep crevice,
The poor dirt
Is put to the work
Of the vine.
I wondered
How such meagre soil
Might husband
The leaf, the flower, the grape
To produce magic
Must juice
From sun-trap arid scrape.
But the grapes are handsome
Clusters on the bush
And the wine
Flows.
Later
As I took cool refreshment
In the cove below
I felt the catchment
Of the cauldron
In wellspring
And flush of freshwater cold
As seepage
Of hidden river
In sweet undercurrent
To the salt water fold
And I understood
The grapes
Plush oasis
And their plump
Story of old, gnarled vines
Tap-rooted fast
To the terroir
Of this Croatian place and time.
© Ben Truesdale and distilledvoice, 2015
The light
In the lens
Of the Adriatic
Glows
Turquoise
As it shimmers
Aquatic.
© Ben Truesdale and distilledvoice, 2015
When high ideas
Condense
To reachable possibility.
© Ben Truesdale and distilledvoice, 2015
The blue earth
Hints
At curvature
Where horizon
Mists
To a dreaming
Faraway thought.
© Ben Truesdale and distilledvoice, 2015
Beyond the trees
In the blue reach
Across the strait,
To the jutting promontory
And the rise
Of distant mountains
We find only half the story
For the near pines exude
Pungent alkaloid sap
And the ratchets
Of cicadas
Percuss in the needle canopy,
And the air
Holds the salt sweat
Of a seaborne breeze
And the moist weight
Of ozone’s far flung memory.
© Ben Truesdale and distilledvoice, 2015
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