Aunty Jan

I always thought my Aunty Jan was a film star.

Perhaps it was her long nails varnished to a glossy red or her lip stick and carefully applied make up.

Perhaps it was the twinkle in her eye and the prettiness she wore so easily or the way she bent down to look at we adoring children, paying us a rare and beautiful moment, a snippet of another life, a gift other worldly and mysterious.

Thirty years on
and I can’t shake the feeling that she glides on charmed, celluloid magic and lives the screen life, passing effortlessly between the real, the silver, and the flickering multicoloured.

© Ben Truesdale and distilledvoice, 2015.

She’s Hot

She’s hot:
So hot she’s taken to shrinking
Behind dark glasses to avoid the
Harsh glare her reflection causes:
She wears her hair as a glossy veil.

In the beginning she sunned herself
In boys clumsy praises, and young
Mens’ too, but then came the daily
Recognition of all men; the staring,
The hungry eyes seeing her beautiful
Status and wanting some of that
Improving brightness to burnish
Themselves, like a ointment of
Loveliness applied to their skin.

And so now she hunkers down
Between her shoulders, shades
Herself in the arms of a celebrity,
Seeks out their star-touched kind,
For her lovely face has made her
Kin to them.

© Ben Truesdale and distilledvoice, 2015.