Late Afternoon At The Beach

Late afternoon
Refracts and alters
The sea from blue-scape
Of cool, dark wandering,

To a surface of captured sea-light,
Spliced by wave flux
To an oscillating multitude
Of angles:

And from it rises haze
In subtle smudge
And salt puff,
Driven above the surge,

Ascending as the outer edge
Of the visible wave,
To high spirit
And fine distillate

Of seawater ether,
Energised beyond
Dense form
And made buoyant

On air’s
Much lighter,
Transitory
Substance.

© Ben Truesdale and distilledvoice, 2015.

Horizon

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A sea wind
Strafes the land
With sun scold
And cloud shadow,
And skylarks hunker,
Warbling in the low gorse,
And bluebells weather
On the seaward slope,
And foxgloves sturdy in the verge
Allow bees their leeward staircase.

The sea is to the full horizon.
And beyond, there is likely
More for thought, for the nothing
In the globe’s curve holds the eyes
To distant possibility: and to the mind
bestows its ponderous question mark.

© Ben Truesdale and distilledvoice, 2015.

Sea Air

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Touched by the algal roll
Of clump and de-clump,
Slosh and surge,
And imbalance
Wet wishing for flat rightness,
And then again
And again
In wave formed turbulence
And the swirling instabilities.

The air
Is sea trained and tainted,
Salt kissed
And matter coated,
Ozoned and flecked
With crest alighted bubble
Of brown spume
And froth.

It’s almost greasy to the touch
And heavy on the breath,
And fresh
For it is
Of sky
And horizon’s depth
And leagues made:
Palette painted with tumultuous storm
And the quietness of sublime calm,
And all the colours there between.

I receive it
With face seaward seeing
And the fingers of a tussle
At the ringlets of my fringe,
And a wide, wide thought
Of emptiness,
Where Seagulls
Glow in sunbeams
And dare the fickle cliffs,
And dive for wild fish
If only for the joyful plunge of it.

© Ben Truesdale and distilledvoice, 2015.

In The Muted Blues

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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