Southern French Village

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The boulangerie
Opens its sleepy eye
To the bird tweeting village
And looks upon
A once neat boulevard
Aged to a trunk lumpy
Old woman, clucking
Pleasantries as she ambles
With white crusty bread
To her shutter clad dwelling
Limp on its hinges
But crookedly beautiful
With time.

Her garden is put to work:
A crop of gnarled tomatoes
Fruiting in pastel lanterns,
Grapes yellowing
And freckled on the vine
And a font
Where honey oozes
Through the faucets
Of voluptuous figs,
Loosened and falling
As purses unclasped
And relaxing
Amid the gravel
In which herbs muster volatile
In air sweetened
To Provençal notes
And excited to fragrance
By a brush past
Or even the sun
Hot in the radiating stones.

© Ben Truesdale and distilledvoice, 2015

Blue Amnion

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In to liquid
I slip sensual,

My skin
To the blue meniscus

Dipped and coated
And consumed

Until forgetting
Of boarders.

My being
Whole blended

In blue amnion
Aquiver

With silver light
And beams

Of aqua marine
Shimmering in electric fathoms.

© Ben Truesdale and distilledvoice, 2015

Highlights

She has highlights in her hair,
The butter kiss
Of summer light
And fragrant breeze
Painted there.

But it’s her thoughts
That wear
The gold
Of lifted mood
And tussle
Beautiful

In halcyon
Of lofty space
And blue sky
Incantation,
Where shine
Is gloss
Upon the body

And soul
Is spirit
Reaching through matter.

© Ben Truesdale and distilledvoice, 2015

Thoughtless Pollinating

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When it wakes
It hears the flowers
Call in scents.
It desires
The ultra violet
Of colours
And the deep
Well of love
In which nectar pools
And collects.
When it wakes
It thinks of nothing else
But the warmth on the wing
And the burrowing head
Thoughtless in the dream
Of pollinating.
When it wakes
It be itself
And thinks
Not a thought
Outside of its being.

© Ben Truesdale and distilledvoice, 2015

The Third Season

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First scents of autumn
Reach
From the must loam,
Impregnate the misty morn
With brown crinkled signs
And fruit
Slack and ready
For plucking.

The vigour of pale youth
Was a lifetime
Under the high sun.
Now the third season
Ripens and plumps,
Relaxes the stiffness
Of purpose
And loosens

To fermenting nap and doze
As the day shortens
And the leaves
Age to crispness,
While wasps fly drunk
On the sweet juice
Of fruit fall
And the billowing glut
To come.

© Ben Truesdale and distilledvoice, 2015

Preserving The Catch

Fishermen haul in their net,
Bring in the unseen dimension
While fair skinned tourists
Haul in a delightful authenticity.

The net is wriggly with silver reflex,
Scales shed as a last desperate breath
Bloodies the gills, and tourists snap
In their own reflex to capture the dying light.

It soon quells as each silver fish
Relinquishes and stills on the beach.
Fishermen tidy their nets and
Tiny fry, caught but unwanted

Dry on the sea of sand,
Embalmed in the photograph
In which tourists preserve,
Just as the fishermen salt

And lay their catch in the sun.

© Ben Truesdale and distilledvoice, 2015