Upon your mortal flesh
my eyes, excited to new seeing,
find windows
in which the script
unravels like quicksilver ink
heart-fast across the page,
and sees off
the mood mundane
written boring in to static fact
of joyless unbecoming,
and instead
thrills the moments in their chain,
and makes them
stones for stepping,
and feet, light for skipping,
as if life, after all,
were not ceaseless, aggravated toil
but flight, free upon the wing.
Ben Truesdale and distilledvoice, 2016
These first tender breaths
Of mildness
In daffodil sun
And light’s expansion outwards,
Are call to every dormant root
And bulb hunkering,
And call to birds
Delighted on the branch,
To shake off the long sleep
For thoughts of pretty plumage
And spirited strut and prance
And skyward dance
On tendril wisp
Of energy awakening.
Ben Truesdale and distilledvoice, 2016
Slow on dormant
Short day
And soil
Chilled stasis,
Yet latched
To the axis
Of the earth
That will
With solstice turn,
Unwind with light
And spiral out,
First shoot,
Then leaf,
Then the flower’s magnitude,
Until
In swelling apex
And full, green flush
Of potential’s plumpness,
All the tangible world
Expresses its ripeness
And rests gladly
In energy’s hands.
© Ben Truesdale and distilledvoice, 2015
If voice
Were sky blue,
Without a word
To clutter the music,
Poetry would find
Its end
In ink’s redundancy,
The written word
Consigned
To beyond memory’s
Grasping hand.
Voice
Would become movement
Of soul through energy
And energy intern
Through the body of the man.
And happening
Would happen only in the instant
And not either side of now.
And thus time itself
Would wink from existence
And yet stretch out
In forever’s eternal flow.
© 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
The thought of the flower,
Though unripe
Cannot be held back,
For the surge
Of magic
Invisibly
Pushes
And reaches
And strives
To be
Inexorably
And irrepressibly
Expressed.
© Ben Truesdale and distilledvoice, 2015
To the tight
To the tearless
To the dried
And desiccated
To the dead
Who still inhabit
I wish
The hot breath
Of Aslam
The gentle touch
Of Jesus Christ
The Buddha’s smile
Mohammad’s light
And the unsung strength
Of every mother
Who loved their child
And the fathers
Who stood
Strong and watchful.
© Ben Truesdale and distilledvoice, 2015
Sometimes
Things just burn
So vivid
With spectrum
Energy,
Almost more
Than the very light.
© Ben Truesdale and distilledvoice, 2015
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.
These days
The lonely words spoken in your head
That seem to shout, condemn
And measure you
Against just about everything else,
Pronouncing you lacking
In all of what you could, would and ought to be,
And thus leaving you
Feeling quite sorry
And down about the mouth,
Can now be named
As
The modern day, 21st century singular self,
So – individual
Yet
So – off the peg,
So – go it alone
Yet,
So – going along with everybody else,
So – I don’t need anybody
Yet,
So – in need of every other one.
Where speaks the other language,
The older self beyond the singular
Where love is prolific
And condemnation
Is past magic
No longer used
In the mind’s
Spacious vessel
Of new beginnings
And things born
To freshness
And the moods
Of kindness
Flushing the body
Energised and clean?
Where speaks the other mind?
© Ben Truesdale and distilledvoice, 2015.
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