Majesty

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Cold as condensing night
Shadows permit
The dew plump air
Burden’s respite
In perfect spheres
Scattered release
On every magnified
Leaf top, crevice and edge
So the garden is justly jewelled
And each strand or stalk
Or equal cobweb,
Gilded silver light,
Is for a moment
Raised from damp
-To king-
And robed in crested finery
And majestic, sparkling transience.

© Ben Truesdale and distilledvoice, 2015

September Spider

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Somehow they are flowers too,
Plump and central
To their strands
And gossamer petals.
Bodies worked at
And made in secret
Through the summer months
Among loam and beneath leaf,
Until the garden
Grown golden and fruitful,
Leaves crinkled
With the sum of age,
Boasts beasts
Materialised to the cradle
Between stems:
Their worldly wears
And accumulation manifest,
Their nets
Set to the bountiful breeze,
Their fingertips poised
For the flower forms of insects
Borne on sunshine
And wingbeats.

© Ben Truesdale and distilledvoice, 2015

The Third Season

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First scents of autumn
Reach
From the must loam,
Impregnate the misty morn
With brown crinkled signs
And fruit
Slack and ready
For plucking.

The vigour of pale youth
Was a lifetime
Under the high sun.
Now the third season
Ripens and plumps,
Relaxes the stiffness
Of purpose
And loosens

To fermenting nap and doze
As the day shortens
And the leaves
Age to crispness,
While wasps fly drunk
On the sweet juice
Of fruit fall
And the billowing glut
To come.

© Ben Truesdale and distilledvoice, 2015

It Rained In The Night

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The air is moist
And humid heavy

But fresh
With new rain,

Still dampening down
Still weighing

Each leaf droopy,
Each bended stalk

Gravity bound.
Some flower heads

Are dew drunk
Lively, plush

And open eyed,
As perfect

As purity
In droplet spheres

Expressed
Upon the petals body.

But some are dashed
To autumnal fall:

The rose
Shaggy on its swollen hip,

Curling
And fading tears

Scattered in the falling.
It’s as if

The night could
Reach beyond

It’s dark boundary:
Wet finger tips

Invading the day
Or morning, at least:

Its species
Conveyed in fluid:

The slugs
The snails

Putting down
Their silver trails

For the sun’s
Open touch

And glitter
In awakening.

© Ben Truesdale and distilledvoice, 2015