Through white noise
My lines
Find your eyes,
And for an instant
Our minds touch,
Bridging
Inconceivable distance.
© Ben Truesdale and distilledvoice, 2015
creativity
For Sake Of Beauty
For sake
Of beauty
I turn to the pen
To scrawl the music
And the word
And the rhythm’s verse
In gliding ink,
And trace
The shapes
Of worlds,
Following their forms
Like a child
Whose love
Is absolute
And brimming
With what perception
Endlessly births,
In riches unfolded
To the mind’s eye.
© Ben Truesdale and distilledvoice, 2015
Nib
The mind
In the nib
Of the pen
Is the light
Switched on,
The wire
In electrical flood,
The synapse of seeing
Open eyed
And transposing
Ideas
Directly
In ink
As if
Their true form
Were black marks
Made upon the page
And not images
Wrapped in similes
And metaphors
Translating the link.
© Ben Truesdale and distilledvoice, 2015
Pointless Poem
This poem
Has no point
But
For the pleasure
In the curvature of words
And the feeling of forms
So malleable
In the mouth.
Just writing it
Is beautiful elocution enough.
Speaking it
Is satisfyingly pointless.
© Ben Truesdale and distilledvoice, 2015
The Unfinished Work
Masterpieces
Lie about the house,
Unlocked
And in pieces,
Still prototypes
And foetuses,
Body parts
Without the spark
To impregnate
The seer
And bring them
To the birth
Of the clear
And pure
Idea.
© Ben Truesdale and distilledvoice, 2015
In Her Butterfly Breath
In the air around
In her warm breath
In her aura.
In the space
That she owns,
Crossed by no other.
In her own land,
The country
Of her soul’s endeavour
There are butterflies
In swarms,
In every multicolour
And species creed.
They are
The myth of her lightness,
For on invisible strings
She is anchored
To every flutter
And delicate wingbeat,
And held aloft
As any lucky cloud
Is mystical
In the wind’s drift
And by the sky delivered.
It’s as if
They were part of her
And her body
Were just food stuff
On which the insects
Come to fill and feast:
Her heart
– A chalice –
Nectar deep,
The sweet centre
Of a spirit flower
That she is
In the ether-other
Beyond the solid and tangible
Regulations of the
World we live.
© Ben Truesdale and distilledvoice, 2015
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
Father Greenseed And His Work
He travels in the secret of the night,
moving on moon beams
and star sent messages.
On the wind too, he walks.
As he moves he rustles
as if he plays the breeze with his fingertips.
And those digits
are woody and knotted
yet supple as the curling vine.
🌾
His face is verge of mischief
and the unkept beard,
a hedgerow masterpiece
whiskered with unruly grass.
If his eyes were a conker’s shine
he would own a chestnut glance
but much more,
for they are shooting
surely as when spring inspires
their energies
to break the woody carapace,
and yet there is a green tinge
to the white wonder of his seeing;
Oh yes, oh yes there really is!
🌾
His bark laugh is the humorous same
as his quick eyes
and just as warm
as the mammalian heart,
though the sap is not viscous hot
but cool sweet honey dew.
Did I mention his hair?
The willow would be shamed
though his is not weeping but platted:
but still the wind plays,
and those low branches
dangle quite mysterious
so he must sweep aside
once in a storm filled while.
🌾
If ever there was a cloak
then he wears it:
and the moon might lose itself
in its forest folds,
and the vale too might be snuggled
as it’s creatures scurrying
on a blackberry and foxglove floor.
🌾
And now to his work,
for this be his reason and magic:
his green fingered love of seasons told.
🌾
First the winter – dead of earth:
where he waters and plans.
🌾
And then to the spring:
where he stoops to each friend
and coaxes the bud delicate.
And to this he breathes
his loam breath
and whispers succulence
to pale leaf-lets
in their parasol and first yawning.
🌾
And then summer:
where his nights are short and warm
and sometimes scent filled,
where he stands proud and bold,
wide eyed and watchful
as any owl,
admiring each of his delightful flowers.
🌾
And then the rich autumn:
where his desires and dreams
are a seed pod in multitude.
For when he walks there is a scattering,
and fertile sparks come off him
in droppings and ricochets,
as if the night contained
the whole of something
and much more beyond time’s now.
And as he strides the land,
his mischief smile somehow commands
his bough arms and his finger tips,
to spit and flick
the pips of newness
in every direction:
his delight and charm in one,
that he might hide the seeds of his creation,
plant wherever so he shouldn’t,
obey the only rule
worth a leaf’s weight
and cast hither and thither
the riddle of the rampant plant,
that knows no bounds
and tries and hopes
in every crevice to the world there found.
🌾
And so, too his intended:
to germinate and split
the kernel or the nut or the seed
and free the cornucopian light,
release it to the unwitting world,
like his life
and his evergreen smile.
© Ben Truesdale and distilledvoice, 2015
And The Mother Said
And the mother said
You can turn on my earth
And in a trice
My children
Will be upon
The glistening clods
To do their colonising
And consoling work.
And you may desert
The plentiful place
And turn it bland
With monoculture,
Dampen
The flourishing
With chemical
And beings augmented
And superior
All the while
Dashing yourself down.
But I will love you nevertheless.
And you may
Stricken the fertile
And the life giving,
Blemish it,
Injure it
And put it
To dust
And stone
And I will scar
For your learned eye
And then turn beautiful
With rest
And time
Fallow and forgiving.
And you may
Use me
Like your own heart used
And cut me
As your own blood flows
And deny me
As your own
Loneliness is made
In the crucible of your intention
And I will love you still
And whole
And love you
As only the land,
In its richness can
For killing is not mine
Nor
My children’s
And as the world turns
I will be
As I have been;
The force
The spirit
The energy
The lick of love
The empty space
The possibility
The lift
Behind it all,
The reason
And creativity
Rolling on, and endlessly on.
© Ben Truesdale and distilledvoice, 2015.
Personal Universe
Are there really
Any wrong turns
Or mistakes
In the journey
Of our living
And in the writing
Of our life?
Perhaps
It is one way
Or the other,
Or another
Entirely different
Something else.
Who knows
And who is right?
Who can know ‘the truth’
Beyond their own
Or pass a judgement
Beyond the perception of the self?
And who is not alone
Upon the earth,
Solitary and singular
In every sense,
Sharing but paradox
And conundrum
Of the personal universe?
© Ben Truesdale and distilledvoice, 2015.
distilledvoice 