First Fine Sustenance

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If I could drink the sky’s cool mood
And mix
The light of first blossoms
So delicately sprinkled in

Then I would

Or breathe a draught of first warmed air,
White fragrance bathed
In sunshine’s friendly face
Arriving to the newness in me

Then I would

Imbibe them both
To feel this first fine sustenance.

Ben Truesdale and distilledvoice, 2016

Robinson Crusoe

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Palms swoop to blue utopia
And sands are refined powders
For the wave washed feet.
And sea water is full spectrum
Aqua marine, visiting every
Denomination between
Palest lagoon and deep oceanic.
And the fish are straight from Eden,
As is each paradise bird,
Paint pallet dipped to definition
By God’s own artful hand.

And from a spring, among rocks,
In the shade of ancient trees,
Sweet water froths and gurgles
To a pool in which a man
Might wash his skin
Of all the sins his choices
Have brought and indelibly marked,
And rise anew,
His face clean, his mind refreshed
As the unlearned infant child
Comes naked and without a thing
In to the clutches of this island world.

 

Copyright 2016 Ben Truesdale & distilledvoice

Sunset

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In the last hour
When the setting sun
Elongates our shadows
And en-goldens our skin,
There is stillness
Of last long light
In the gentle stroll,
And quiet in the wavelet’s
Sodary pulse,
And timelessness
In the lulling
Of seawater swishing
Upon the cushioning sand.

 

Copyright 2016 Ben Truesdale & distilledvoice

Authenticity

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With a face from the front cover of the National Geographic the old man carries the burden of paddy baskets with entrepreneurial spirit, balancing his load for each photographer and grinning with a toothy and well practised smile. More than anyone else, he knows the value of authenticity and clucks eagerly for the next shutter click to capture his own in the stillness of film.

 

copyright 2016 Ben Truesdale & distilledvoice

Old Boat

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Half a boat
Long ago dragged
To moulder on the tide line,
Relaxes in splinters
Shed like bark.

One day
They’ll be but bevelled plank
Jutting from the sand
And a fibrous thought
Left in the memory

Or perhaps
Another wreck
Lent sideways
And slack upon its keel,
Fading in the inevitable time.

 

Copyright 2016 Ben Truesdale & distilledvoice

White Sand

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In the geometry
Of blue horizons
And skirting beach
I find a boat
Paint peeling
And silvery
In the coral sand.

In the end
All things bleach:
The wooden seat,
The coral shingle,
The old man
Whose facial stubble
Grows white
As the particulate
He stands upon.

 

Copyright 2016 Ben Truesdale & distilledvoice