From the sand
Sprout tubular mangrove,
Dusty and leaf stripped
To the bare essential frame.
An idle bike, left to the sand’s Abrasion somehow mirrors their
Natural form, as if all were equal
Within the shade, beneath the sun.
Copyright 2016 Ben Truesdale & distilledvoice
Over most the world
She cascades,
Ever and always
Downward she falls,
And yet sometimes
In her ramblings she climbs,
With rings on every single finger
And butterflies in dreams,
Settling as momentary flowers
And garlands lifted beyond.
O she’s beautiful in her fringes
And ethereal reaches,
Beautiful in her bow
And salutation to the sun.
Copyright 2016 Ben Truesdale & distilledvoice
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
We spent the last hours
Bent to the sand
Sifting the tide line
For tiny shells.
In among the bleached fragments
We found cowries, green stones
And purple coral. The sun
Was hot on our backs
But when it fell behind the rock
Promontory we didn’t notice,
Our fingers busy like the feathery Mandibles of wary crabs.
Afterwards we went to the bar
Perched on the headland
And looked out over the vast water,
Absorbing the orangey light
That changed as we thought
Our long thoughts and took
Photographs of the magic
As it diminished in the far away night.
Copyright 2016 Ben Truesdale & distilledvoice
There is a moment
Between the days strength
And night arriving
When the trickle of light
Almost ceased,
Stills
At the balance point
Between phases.
And there
We come close
To time’s demise:
The essential end
And the very beginning,
Like two delicate eggs
Nestled in the hand
Holding the quiet duality
Of a thing in limbo:
Being not one
Or other
But both
And neither.
copyright 2016 Ben Truesdale & distilledvoice
Every holiday snap
Is a slap
Right across your face,
Dear reader, watcher, liker,
Cos I’m the smug vacation maker
Whose wall you’ve reluctantly
Signed to yours.
And if you were here
I’d bore you to tears
But as you’re not
I’ll just smack you across the chops
With how lovely a time
I’m having
Under the smug sun
Next to the smug water
In the smug dream
That stinks
Of all the self importance
I could manageably conjure.
copyright 2016 Ben Truesdale & distilledvoice
Surf rises
To the mirror lip sun,
A moment before
White thrall,
Loose of integrity
And slack
Of reer-up and shore call,
Pales the deep blue
To a lighter shade.
Near the rocks
Haze moistens the air
With sticky salt
Greasy on every surface
And root grasping trees
Survey the consistent pulse
From high, squinting promontories
Stark against the prevailing horizons
And the sea changing sky.
copyright 2016 Ben Truesdale & distilledvoice
Beneath the succulent leaves,
In the shadow cast
Where harsh sun
Fragments
To a gentle dappling,
Proboscis flowers
Scent the musty undergrowth
With sweetness derived
From intense concentration.
Like the artist
Who dedicates the hours
To find a pure manifestation,
The flower too
Is single minded
In its delicate craft
And delights in its creation.
copyright 2016 Ben Truesdale & distilledvoice
From the medium
In which the leaf reclines
And absorbs
Warm solar muse,
Pure art
Forms as the perfect
Opening flower
And blessed
Replication of the sun:
A depiction
Of the source
From which
All lives spawn
And irrevocably come.
copyright 2016 Ben Truesdale & Distilledvoice
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
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