Flirtatious Mid April

April 22, 2016April 22, 2016 ~ distilledvoice ~ Leave a comment

In the countryside
Hawthorn flirts salacious,
Fluorescing champagne heady
In puffs of magic breath
Strung light upon the hedgerow’s
Dour skeletal winter branch,
Split and thankfully broken
By plethora encrustations
In scores of tiny white flowers.

In the town and village
The roads become boulevards
In which magnolia offer
Perfect molluscs
To the neat and leafless,
And cherry blossoms
Enlighten the spirit
Like wedding bells
And confetti heaped,
While winter jasmine,
In shocks of vivid yellow,
Leaps out and streaks
In lurid flares of flagrant disbelief.

Ben Truesdale and distilledvoice, 2016

In The Condensation

April 11, 2016 ~ distilledvoice ~ Leave a comment

The cool dawn
still tendrils damp
on dew cloaked leaf
and humid mist
of the night breath diminishing.
Each and every blade
of the mop flop grass
wears a sparkling jewel
in which the sun quivers
as a white hot fragment.
And the concrete path
mottles transpiring art
in patches of sunshine
scolding from behind
swift passing clouds,
while every vigorous plant
is flushed to upthrust,
called and prompted
by firm osmotic grasp
and fluid’s turgid evaporation.

Ben Truesdale and distilledvoice, 2016

Avenue Of Finches

March 13, 2016 ~ distilledvoice ~ Leave a comment

The finches and dawn tits
Make an avenue of the gardens,
Traversing boundary and fence
As if they weren’t hurdles
But opportunity along the way.

Each March they make their highway here,
Gathering seeds from spent winter stems.
And from pods, crisp in bunches, they cling,
Feeding as if the wait were over
And the joyous work of spring begun.

Ben Truesdale and distilledvoice, 2016

Gnats Rise

March 12, 2016 ~ distilledvoice ~ Leave a comment

Gnats rise
To their dusk dance:
Life in transient, delicate form
Upon the stillness of mist
Dewing in the blue
Of copse and dell’s hollow.
An echo of the spring warmth
That touched the ground
And energised
The display upon the dim edges
Of the nearing night,
Bringing lives
To delicacies and finesse
With hardly a wingbeat
To keep them buoyant
And borne on sunlight’s shadow.

Ben Truesdale and distilledvoice, 2016

Husband

March 12, 2016 ~ distilledvoice ~ 5 Comments

With March pleasant in the air
My gardener’s fingers
Find soil smudge
In their ready tips.

And the light footed heart
Of daffodil magic
And sunshine breath
Skips like lambs

To the work of seeds
Pregnant in their trays.
And I think:
On days like these

It’s not only the lungs that breathe
But the skin
And the brain
And the body,

And I feel that with the mellow rays
Of springtime in the bird’s announcing,
Man really could be
True husband to the world

Ben Truesdale and distilledvoice, 2016

Tender Light

February 29, 2016 ~ distilledvoice ~ Leave a comment

These first tender breaths
Of mildness
In daffodil sun
And light’s expansion outwards,
Are call to every dormant root
And bulb hunkering,
And call to birds
Delighted on the branch,
To shake off the long sleep
For thoughts of pretty plumage
And spirited strut and prance
And skyward dance
On tendril wisp
Of energy awakening.

Ben Truesdale and distilledvoice, 2016