time

Village

~ distilledvoice ~ 3 Comments

FullSizeRender.jpg

Nestled in the deep pocket
Of the Cotswolds
Lies a village
That can only be known
Via old tracks, footpaths
And bridleways.

Some say it was lost,
Loosing its footing in time.
And some say it is found
Disregarding time’s
Bustling runaway.

But all who walk
The sleepy streets
Are touched by the woodsmoke air
And the cottage gardens’
Homely claim

On old walls
In which the roses scramble
And flowers beds billowing rich
Beside the flagstone path.
And time appears

To flow unending
From pastoral histories
And more simple years
Where one year spent
Yielded freely
In the spending of the next.

© Ben Truesdale and distilledvoice, 2016

Old Boat

~ distilledvoice ~ Leave a comment

image

Half a boat
Long ago dragged
To moulder on the tide line,
Relaxes in splinters
Shed like bark.

One day
They’ll be but bevelled plank
Jutting from the sand
And a fibrous thought
Left in the memory

Or perhaps
Another wreck
Lent sideways
And slack upon its keel,
Fading in the inevitable time.

 

Copyright 2016 Ben Truesdale & distilledvoice

Sunset At Slack Water

~ distilledvoice ~ 6 Comments

image

There is a moment
Between the days strength
And night arriving
When the trickle of light
Almost ceased,
Stills
At the balance point
Between phases.

And there
We come close
To time’s demise:
The essential end
And the very beginning,
Like two delicate eggs
Nestled in the hand
Holding the quiet duality
Of a thing in limbo:
Being not one
Or other
But both
And neither.

 

copyright 2016 Ben Truesdale & distilledvoice

The End Of The Written Word

~ distilledvoice ~ 1 Comment

If voice
Were sky blue,
Without a word
To clutter the music,
Poetry would find
Its end
In ink’s redundancy,
The written word
Consigned
To beyond memory’s
Grasping hand.
Voice
Would become movement
Of soul through energy
And energy intern
Through the body of the man.
And happening
Would happen only in the instant
And not either side of now.
And thus time itself
Would wink from existence
And yet stretch out
In forever’s eternal flow.

© Ben Truesdale and distilledvoice, 2015

Epoque

~ distilledvoice ~ Leave a comment

In the black and white photograph
the 19th century station bustles with
top hats and ladies in feathered felt,
and there isn’t a man without a
moustache or sideburns flanking.

Hot bellied locomotives simmer
in the sidings and polished carriages
queue in timely lines while walruses
inspect pocket watches and point at
the world with portly cigars.

There isn’t a thing out of time: every
article existing is touched by the age,
coloured by fashions of the mind;
the ladies fine frocks of puff
petticoats and pinafores, the hiss

and mist of escaping steam, the
brass tubing veining engines, the
great hall aloft on stanchions of cast
iron. Even the tea cup and train ticket
exude époque and the purity of

happenings coinciding to form all
that was in that moment then. And
when I look I can’t find a thing that
seems unreal. Is this a trick? Will my
decedents look upon the vistas of

our time and see rich nostalgia
colouring the skin of everything. Or
will they see the lack of meaning by
which we shape, steer and live our lives
and want no part of its empty shame?

© Ben Truesdale and distilledvoice, 2015

The Terrible Speed Of Missing The Moment

~ distilledvoice ~ Leave a comment

The world spins
On instant access

Where secrets
Divulge
In the second of their conception

And news
Burns like star-fall

And dies as quickly
To the black
And old.

And time,
Shackled workhorse
To the mind

Careers
As never should
It fall precious
Past uncaring hand
And fingers barely touching,

Racing
Itself to panting
Wreck and ruin:
All of what it’s worth
Spent
In a flash
Of fast food
And capitalism,
Memorised
Even before
Its moment
Of occurrence
And physical birth.

The future
Travelling
To the past
But heart bypassed
So as not to happen
In the now
At all.

© Ben Truesdale and distilledvoice, 2015

So Slowly

~ distilledvoice ~ Leave a comment

IMG_2257

So slowly
Yet the years pass by
And old roads
Enveloped
By the seasons fruit
And fallen leaves
Brought down
To the carpeting ground
Are each year
Millimetres closer
To the countryside,
As new formed earth,
Like age rings
Of the tree,
Mark the cycle
By their regular encroachment.

It is thus
That our histories
Are buried.
And time is immeasurable
As it flows
Sometimes slowly
And other times
Like a swift tide,
Our ancestors
Sunk in the mud
Of generations,
As the millimetres
Have built
To the platform
On which
Life now resides

And finds us alive,
Upon the skin
Of now happening
But with deep roots
Drawing and sucking
On the layered sediments
Of history
And all those
Dead ideas.

© Ben Truesdale and distilledvoice, 2015