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
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.
After rain,
A moments solar respite
On the hydrophobic leaves.
Next,
To the light as wingtip air
And figures of flittering,
To the updraft
And the couplet spiralling
As high as love
And the mesmerisation
In mating’s
Centrifugal force.
© Ben Truesdale and distilledvoice, 2015.
If there was a word
Better earned
By the bee,
Than friend,
I do not know it.
For friend
Is as warm
And yellow
In it’s gift
Of honey
To the land,
And comes symbiotic
With sunshine,
And plenty’s
Open handed flower.
© Ben Truesdale and distilledvoice, 2015.
They speak
As they have always spoken
For in the long lost,
To be man was to listen:
For the ancient’s song
Was to the heart first given.
And in that time
There was no loneliness
For all together
Could hear:
The words brought warmth
To those alone
And feelings
Were gently administered to
By man’s depth
Of understanding.
And fear was diminished
By the mind’s wide aspect
And reach across the heavens
That the free may walk,
Just as self embodied
Walks free upon the earth.
And love was easily found
And so the needs were few
And the people were happy
And the living good
As ever could
The living be
With voices
Always speaking
In kindness decree.
© Ben Truesdale and distilledvoice, 2015.
For Patrick Jennings http://pixtowords.com
She finds sweet-bitter nostalgia
And the succulent melancholy
Of a faraway gaze,
In her wondering
At the grandeur:
And her place within it.
© Ben Truesdale and distilledvoice, 2015.
Beyond the crowding thoughts
And all that shadows
Freedom’s choice
Glows blue sky
Width and dimension.
© Ben Truesdale and distilledvoice, 2015.
Summer breeze
Gentle in the leaf tips,
Rustling silver in the sun,
Playful as the lovers
Whose bough-bodies bend
And flex below:
Their hair too
Is wind tussled.
© Ben Truesdale and distilledvoice, 2015.
I offer sympathy
To the sorry,
Lonely self
Who burned the bridges
To the wider self,
Severing from his larger entity,
To go solo and hurting
With a wound
Of self reducing,
And isolation
In the mind
Restricted from the universe,
That could be his
If only he could recognise
The wideness of his nature’s truth
And Accept his home
Beyond the reaches of his skin.
© Ben Truesdale and distilledvoice, 2015.
What more
For needs met
Than lift
Of soul
Buoyed and self held
In deepest respect.
The harming hand
Changed
From ill will
To loving intent,
And energy accepted
As gift
Of freedom sent
And shift in mind
To wind of happiness
Free about the body.
The only reality
Is the wand of choice
And liberation
Of abundant spirit.
© Ben Truesdale and distilledvoice, 2015.
distilledvoice 