equality

Am I A Woman Or A Man?

~ distilledvoice ~ Leave a comment

The masculine polarity is lorded

In my mind.

The feminine principle is subjugated.

Am I a man or a woman?

I deem certain characteristics

As female attributes. Certain others,

I assign to the realms of the male.

Am I a woman or a man?

I raise my children

To view the world as I do,

They believe nearly all I taught.

Are they male or female?

My thoughts are riddled with bias

And unconscious design,

A rigorous conditioning.

Am I female or male?

I am a part of society,

Constructing the ‘how is’

In my action and inaction.

Am I masculine or feminine?

Am I a woman or a man,

A man or a woman,

A female or a male,

A male or female?

Am I jointly responsible?

Am I equally responsible?

Am I free of constraint

Or bonded to the ideas I believe?

Brothers In Colour

~ distilledvoice ~ Leave a comment

There is something
Victorian
In his whiteness,
A correctness
Disciplining the rest
So regulation
Rules in dry doctrine.

And to his eye
His black skinned brother
Is carnal opposite
To the structure
Rigid in his self
And he fears
The hot power
Of a primitive.

And thus
The black man
Is subdued
For being
The outward heart
With body filled
With blood and vigour

And the white man
Gelds himself,
Separates from his pulse,
His inner fire,
Grows cold and stiff,
And with backstroke
Of his incising knife
Flays
His collateral brother,
So in neither
Is the life found flowing,
And in both
The cut
Equally deep.

© Ben Truesdale and distilledvoice, 2015

Equality

~ distilledvoice ~ Leave a comment

IMG_1293

Whether tended rose, vine
Or weed in bramble entanglement
We yearn the same dream:
And equal upon the earth
Take sustenance
In sunshine on the cheek,
Leaf or flowering petal.
We are the same in love
And level in our needs.
We are not different in our beings
Or our brotherhood.
We are one under the sun
And one in our differing.
We are together in our reach
For the sky blue expansion
Of life’s meaning.

© Ben Truesdale and distilledvoice, 2015