poems

Don’t Delve

~ distilledvoice ~ Leave a comment

Don’t delve around in the mud,

Searching for the lost parts of yourself

In a quagmire of regret and loss.

The lost parts of yourself aren’t there,

And nor are they lost,

For the self watches you over your shoulder

Aware of the mud on your face

And the oily stink between your fingers

As you dredge up your shameful

And sordid past,

Offering yet another ugly

Memory for memory to feed upon.

Instead, climb up upon the bank,

Sit in the sun, allowing your mind

To drift free from the sludge

Of past chronicles.

Your lost self was never lost,

And sits, enjoying the sunshine

Smiling kindly upon your tribulations.

It was you who was lost, not yourself,

Who’s love for you

Was never in question.

The Path

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In the ever present now

We find ourselves

Expanding

In knowing –

That we are infinite being

At the crisp edge

Of happening:

Becoming ourselves

In the unfolding of the universe.

And sometimes we forget,

Dawdle lazy

On the road

Of our making:

Obstacles scattered

By our own hand

That make the journey

Seem tiresome and long

And effortful.

And sometimes we remember

The ever present now,

And step inside ourselves

And the universe,

And the being

That we always were,

And see

We too are always infinite,

And the road

And its obstacles

Are but illusions

On an illusionary path.

Idea number one hundred and fifty-two: Hold Firm

~ distilledvoice ~ 6 Comments

The limited one

Who’s listened and learned

And thought

In all manner of spiralling pathways,

Listing reason, rejection, and facts

And one hundred and fifty failures,

Leading to failure

Number one hundred and fifty-one,

Says: you’re just not good enough.

And chatters, chatters, chatters on.

–

Yet, the one unlimited,

Says: speak

For your voice

Is a voice to be heard.

Go on always forward.

Write with the wind behind your pen,

Unleashing genius upon the page.

Let your life flow in ink

For the joy

Of ideas metamorphosed,

Ideas grasped from realms ethereal,

Buzzing alive in your head

And conducted

Into the matter of the book

That will be read

If you but put your whole mind behind

The creation of it,

Knowing the limited one

To be a friend enlisted,

His chatter a misused tool

Not a hindrance,

His ideas, gold,

If only directed,

His creative urge

Your own wand

Through which the magic unfolds,

Emboldening your life

And the script you must be

To be wholly yourself,

Holding firm to the pen that you love.

Tell Me There Is No Heaven

~ distilledvoice ~ Leave a comment

As you recline on the freshly mown grass

With your eyes closed

And the sunshine

Warm on your face,

Tell me there is no heaven.

And with birdsong

In every angle of your ears,

And the sweet breath plentiful

And touched by the scents on the breeze,

Tell me again, there is no heaven.

Lights Of March

~ distilledvoice ~ 1 Comment

 

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Softly treads March
Upon the sun-warmed earth:
A new green pallet
Strewn in daplings
Beneath trees
Still winter shod
But bearing
Blue sky and bud.
And Beneath:
A brief trumpeting
Of yellowness
Before the sky shades
With a canopy of leaf.

©Ben Truesdale and distilledvoice, 2017

August Morn

~ distilledvoice ~ Leave a comment

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Dawn slides oblique
Between the flat shadows
Of night’s quiet layering,
Piques the corn-ripe air
Spiriting earth musk
From the damp leave’s
Cool-blooded undergrowth.

A chill hint
Of vapour in the breath,
Bumble bees slow
And sleepy,
Bird twitter in the bush,
The west leaf in day light’s tilt,
The east leaf, still suckling
In dim pockets
And grottos half shut.

© Ben Truesdale and distilledvoice, 2016

The Night Rain

~ distilledvoice ~ 4 Comments

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The night rain
Loads the morning foliage,
Hauls each stem down
With a sheen.

The damp leaves
Lick the air,
Exfoliating pungencies
And sap soaked humidity,

Hunkering in rich breath
Of the wood scent,
Releasing stomatal volatiles
And chlorophyll astringencies,

Tempered by the nectars
Of bedraggled flowers,
Lolling before the sunshine
Straightens them.

© Ben Truesdale and distilledvoice, 2016

Cotswold Summer

~ distilledvoice ~ 2 Comments

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There is a moment in the Cotswold year
When the rolling wheat fields
Summon the golden hue of the stone
On which all is built:

It is the baked brown of a village
Ripe upon the history of the hills;
The colour of summer made hay
Adhering to the sparse pasture

And bitten at by shaggy sheep.
It is light to warm the heart
And grow roses from the sun
Still kept at dusk

In the envoys of the warm bricks
Radiating in ochre moods
As the jasmine clad night enfolds
All within its sumptuous scents.

© Ben Truesdale and distilledvoice, 2016