mind

Road Towards Stasis

~ distilledvoice ~ 2 Comments

The old man watches
as time races:
all the young
frothing in its leading edge,
powerful on its surge,
the wave on which they surf:
confident like fearless children.

He was like them
in his unbeknownst youth,
careless with the ideas
of others: tossing them
for the new and exciting,
rubbishing the staid
and stilled establishment.

It irks him now,
not to see his work dismissed,
but that he has succumbed
to ageing’s inevitable drift
into beliefs hardening:
all of what he knows torn,
by the turn of the unconcerned,
from his grasp to hold it static.

© Ben Truesdale and distilledvoice, 2016

Monoculture World Order

~ distilledvoice ~ 2 Comments

In one corner of the globe
The terrorists enforce
Their monoculture of thought,
While we in the free west
Subjugate the wilderness
And extort only the soil.
In both, the species diminish
As control devours
The slightest difference
And allows only
The one persistent idea:
That diversity must perish.

© Ben Truesdale and distilledvoice, 2016

Wizard

~ distilledvoice ~ Leave a comment

He spins his breath
In to a spell
Of enigma circling,
Like an auric cloak of twisting fog
Behind which he ducks
In the maintainence of mystery.

What dwells within the vortex
Behind the wall of half
Answered questions
And glimpses
Drawn away by the spell?
Is there a mystery within
Or only the wish of mystery
And its subtle trickery
Of the hidden man?

I invite you,
Wizard behind the spell of
Manipulated wonderment:
Step forward, naked and without the
Swirling clothes that hide your name
And deflect every question
To a riddle in a cul de sac.

Step out, Wizard.
Is not real magic,
To be visible, straight forward,
Unclothed and vivid as the thing
Unashamed and confident:
The mysterious wand set down,
The spell dispersed,
The conjuring acquitted,

The self beneath, unmasked.

© Ben Truesdale and distilledvoice, 2016

The Writer’s Heart

~ distilledvoice ~ 3 Comments

The lusty heart
strains and fills to full,
pumps for the pen,
swells with the voice,
reaches through the hand’s device:
unburdens oratory cascade
in reams of white sheets impressed
with the ink of its desire to be,
and speak of what it feels
and finds upon the page.

© Ben Truesdale and distilledvoice, 2016

Myths Of Zealots

~ distilledvoice ~ 2 Comments

In the myth of science
there are all the beautiful stories
you could ever wish to contrive.

In the religion of science
there are the stiffly clasped
doctrines of zealots.

In the science of science
there are symbols, and arguments
over the meanings of things.

But we are still the people
as we were the people before,
hearing fragments and rumours,

pasting them in to the pastiche
of our fears, our dreams
and the myths we’ve believed.

Yet another relentless turn of the age
sees misunderstandings told,
preached as the truth,

our power deflected from self
and put to Gods of numbers
and statistics, pushed away

from the heart’s human yolk
that weeps to discern truth
from confusion’s intellectual maelstrom.

© Ben Truesdale and distilledvoice, 2016

Magus

~ distilledvoice ~ 2 Comments

We are world
of lost magicians,
forgetting
the alchemy of our hands.
But look at the gardener
who with wands for fingers
summons the sweet ethers
of seasons
and coaxes lush forms
from the fine architecture
of mind, planting ideas
in soil’s enchantment
under the sun’s command.
Is he not creator above and beyond,
shaping reality to match
the deep archetypes
of his green heart’s desires:
a God, as any on high,
for in perpetuity he reins
among the beauty
of his earth bound legumes
and gifts of highfalutin flowers?

© Ben Truesdale and distilledvoice, 2016

Fishes

~ distilledvoice ~ Leave a comment

image

In the miraculous fish
That come again and again
Like tide to the table
Forever sustained
And always providing
A predictable nourishment,
We encounter
The earthbound principle
Of abundance
Found in habitat
The world over.

If only we could open our eyes
To the reality of the fish
And discard
All those meagre imposters
Who swim the dark waters
Of our fearful minds,
Whispering demise
Instead of flourishing
On currents
Of forever replenishing
And upwellings of bringing
That swell in offering
Despite our reluctance to see.

 

Copyright 2016 Ben Truesdale & distilledvoive

Photograph

~ distilledvoice ~ 2 Comments

image

My father used to recount
The story of a green flash
Seen at sea when the
Sun slipped below the horizon.

As I watch the sun set
I find his story on my lips,
As though the flash were imprinted
As surely as if I’d seen it myself.

Copyright 2016 Ben Truesdale & distilledvoice