5 o’clock sun
Paints
Water colours,
Touches white flecks
With delicate
Brush strokes.
© Ben Truesdale and distilledvoice, 2015.
sea
In The Meniscus
In the meniscus
The whole reflected world.
Even in the shine
Of the pebbles,
Glossed wet,
There are mirrors
Two fold:
In the painted light
And in the seeing.
*
And In the sheen
Of the sea’s damp hold
Stones gleam transformed.
Surfaces everywhere
Like shields,
Like barriers
To hold the selves
Of things,
Make them impervious
And themselves
Entirely.
Stones are whole
Behind their skin,
Behind the thin film
And that,
Reflected on its surface.
And the sea too
Is deep
Below it’s meniscus.
© Ben Truesdale and distilledvoice, 2015.
Fringes Of Light
All in the world
Is fringing
Something else
And matter
In spectrums
Pronounces the light.
© Ben Truesdale and distilledvoice, 2015.
From Blueness
Sea born rhythms
Arrive in blueness pulse
After blueness pulse,
And where the shallows
Show in pale shoals
And the globes of stones
Glow egg-like and shimmering,
The waves rise troubled
And breathe the air
To the new azure
Of their turbulent lungs,
Curling and introvert
In their wet work
Until the almost perfect
Curve of the rolling surf
Slips from the form and balance
Of its clothes
And seeks abandon
In bubble
And white water surge:
All its energy fragmented
And absorbed
In the froth and melee
Of interface.
© Ben Truesdale and distilledvoice, 2015.
Late Afternoon At The Beach
Late afternoon
Refracts and alters
The sea from blue-scape
Of cool, dark wandering,
To a surface of captured sea-light,
Spliced by wave flux
To an oscillating multitude
Of angles:
And from it rises haze
In subtle smudge
And salt puff,
Driven above the surge,
Ascending as the outer edge
Of the visible wave,
To high spirit
And fine distillate
Of seawater ether,
Energised beyond
Dense form
And made buoyant
On air’s
Much lighter,
Transitory
Substance.
© Ben Truesdale and distilledvoice, 2015.
Notes On Monochrome
Last, withdrawing light
Caught in a mirror of sand
Sheened with molecule wetness.
© Ben Truesdale and distilledvoice, 2015.
Horizon
A sea wind
Strafes the land
With sun scold
And cloud shadow,
And skylarks hunker,
Warbling in the low gorse,
And bluebells weather
On the seaward slope,
And foxgloves sturdy in the verge
Allow bees their leeward staircase.
The sea is to the full horizon.
And beyond, there is likely
More for thought, for the nothing
In the globe’s curve holds the eyes
To distant possibility: and to the mind
bestows its ponderous question mark.
© Ben Truesdale and distilledvoice, 2015.
Sea Air
Touched by the algal roll
Of clump and de-clump,
Slosh and surge,
And imbalance
Wet wishing for flat rightness,
And then again
And again
In wave formed turbulence
And the swirling instabilities.
The air
Is sea trained and tainted,
Salt kissed
And matter coated,
Ozoned and flecked
With crest alighted bubble
Of brown spume
And froth.
It’s almost greasy to the touch
And heavy on the breath,
And fresh
For it is
Of sky
And horizon’s depth
And leagues made:
Palette painted with tumultuous storm
And the quietness of sublime calm,
And all the colours there between.
I receive it
With face seaward seeing
And the fingers of a tussle
At the ringlets of my fringe,
And a wide, wide thought
Of emptiness,
Where Seagulls
Glow in sunbeams
And dare the fickle cliffs,
And dive for wild fish
If only for the joyful plunge of it.
© Ben Truesdale and distilledvoice, 2015.
In The Muted Blues
In the muted blues
And metal greys
Of sea and skyscape ranging
Wide and windless rippled,
Purple flowers
Strew the tussock,
Guiding light footsteps
Through the hummock greens
To the ways of the coastal path.
© Ben Truesdale and distilledvoice, 2015
The Pebbles Soothing
In the beginning I was sharp:
Hewn and fractured and split.
And there I lay in the elements for an
Eternity, in flicker of night and day.
Little by little I slid, slipped
And was washed to the river
Where I clattered: my edges
Blunted, broken and dulled.
After eons I found the reassuring sea,
Its salt brine sanctuary,
And was drawn in to wave grind
And the constant draw and push
Of each surge and counter rush:
The rolling swish of a billion
Touching stones caressed in fluid
Musicality and thrown high upon the
Tide line, to lie as almost perfect
Spheres; shaped, refined, defined
And rounded to the soothing curves
Of a microcosmic world reflected.
© Ben Truesdale and distilledvoice, 2015.
distilledvoice 