nostalgia

We Were Kids

~ distilledvoice ~ 2 Comments

We set out as kids
On summer days,
Rummaging through
The undergrowth
Beneath sycamore and elder,
With mists of cow parsley
In the balance of our eyes
And swathes neck deep
On every side.
We were explores
Cutting the pungent stems
With machetes made from sticks
And the magic designed
In childhood minds,
Mapping uncharted banks
And the untended nooks
Behind garages,
Where cut grass
Disgorged from the garden’s arse
Sweated in heaps,
And old bikes
Were colonised
By wild grass
That rustled as we pushed by
On days that ranged so broad
We couldn’t perceive their endings.

© Ben Truesdale and distilledvoice, 2016

Journey

~ distilledvoice ~ Leave a comment

Where is the boy lost
In the journey to the man?
Where is the balance point
In which he slips in metamorphosis
Through youth toward old age,
In transit of time’s
Morphing body become?

Perhaps he is not lost
But changed in skin
And greying hair
And stiffness in the bones,
The boy alive
But draped in memory’s
Encrustations
That sway the free thoughts
Of boyish dreams
From all their boyish freedoms.

© Ben Truesdale and distilledvoice, 2016

Epoque

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In the black and white photograph
the 19th century station bustles with
top hats and ladies in feathered felt,
and there isn’t a man without a
moustache or sideburns flanking.

Hot bellied locomotives simmer
in the sidings and polished carriages
queue in timely lines while walruses
inspect pocket watches and point at
the world with portly cigars.

There isn’t a thing out of time: every
article existing is touched by the age,
coloured by fashions of the mind;
the ladies fine frocks of puff
petticoats and pinafores, the hiss

and mist of escaping steam, the
brass tubing veining engines, the
great hall aloft on stanchions of cast
iron. Even the tea cup and train ticket
exude époque and the purity of

happenings coinciding to form all
that was in that moment then. And
when I look I can’t find a thing that
seems unreal. Is this a trick? Will my
decedents look upon the vistas of

our time and see rich nostalgia
colouring the skin of everything. Or
will they see the lack of meaning by
which we shape, steer and live our lives
and want no part of its empty shame?

© Ben Truesdale and distilledvoice, 2015