A Year In The Chalk Stone Village

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In the chalk stone village
Flint glints metamorphic
In shards of black sunlight
Mortared in the strata
Of a time when much
Was constructed from spare
Thoughts left lying around.

In the spring
Fledgling wisteria,
Delicate on the woody vine,
Take to the sky on pale green wings,
And garlands dangle voluptuous
Above each cottage door
And homely window frame.

And in the summer
Swallows spit and daub
Their dwellings under eaves
And flit the pink sky
Scoring invisible patterns
Of impermanence etched
With high swooping cries.

And in the autumn
The plants give up
The flush of summer’s
Vital light, let go the link
For approaching torpid night
And release their fruits
To future’s fertile cornucopia.

And in the winter,
The shabby season’s end,
Expectant bulbs await the sign
To push their green nibs
Beyond the hugging ground
And light the new year
Just as the last was so conjured.

© Ben Truesdale and distilledvoice, 2015

Preserving The Catch

Fishermen haul in their net,
Bring in the unseen dimension
While fair skinned tourists
Haul in a delightful authenticity.

The net is wriggly with silver reflex,
Scales shed as a last desperate breath
Bloodies the gills, and tourists snap
In their own reflex to capture the dying light.

It soon quells as each silver fish
Relinquishes and stills on the beach.
Fishermen tidy their nets and
Tiny fry, caught but unwanted

Dry on the sea of sand,
Embalmed in the photograph
In which tourists preserve,
Just as the fishermen salt

And lay their catch in the sun.

© Ben Truesdale and distilledvoice, 2015

My iPhone And The Cloud

In to the phone’s world
I look,
So varied
So shiny
So new.

In to this
I download my memory,
My images,
My thoughts.

And all the questions
I might ask myself,
Both profound
And mundane,
Away I merrily Google.

The world
In one way widened,
And yet
One way closed

As life shifts
Ever nearer,
Ever closer
To the outside mind
Of the irresistible cloud.

© Ben Truesdale and distilledvoice, 2015.