It’s just the same as it always was
Except now
I can read your every unedited thought
And see
Your self image
So much more clearly.
© Ben Truesdale and distilledvoice, 2015
writing
For The Racists
Worse than hatred;
The blanking hand
Demises those blanked
And withheld acknowledgment
Disappears the subject of a self
As if it were a ghost
Of no magnitude or apparentcy.
A crime to be blanked
And yet also,
Crime in the one who blanks,
For the racist cauterises his own
Wholesome self in the violence
Of his denying
And lies as injured as his victim
In the victimhood of his division:
No longer seeing all the beautiful
Faces who are the whole of him.
Half his heart he disowns and cuts
From his being, settling in to the
Fraction of the self remaining,
So colourless and drained,
And denied of life’s real meaning
In the face of otherness rejected.
© Ben Truesdale and distilledvoice, 2015
Virus Of News
In our reality
Thoughts shape the space
Of our dream.
A news item,
A Facebook outrage,
A horror,
Flares like guilt in the brain
And an abdominal twist of pain.
These are the food of nightmares.
Are they facts?
Possibly,
Probably,
Perhaps not.
For all the circled world is but a myth
Of savoured and soured dreams,
Where truths
Are malleable
And thoughts are bent
And perception
Is first machined by bias,
Changed by the colour of memory.
Our facts
Are not the solid stones we think
But slippery fish
With faces in multitude.
Not facts at all
But tellings and stories,
Mixed fictions and truths,
Happenings and imaginings,
Wishes and fears both,
Reported as the proper news
But perhaps not news at all,
Just the incessant re-posting of a viral fantasy.
© Ben Truesdale and distilledvoice, 2015
An Unexpected Ease
In a war
Somewhere far away
And in the thoughts
Rained down upon the body
Something different arises,
Something fresh encroaches:
A broader, slower force
Seeps in like a summer breeze
To lift where there is heaviness,
To cool where there is heat,
To free where is entanglement.
A feeling like a mother’s hand
Gently cradling her baby’s head,
Watching benignly yet purposefully,
Administering kindness
To every need.
© Ben Truesdale and distilledvoice, 2015
In The Rose
Nose first
And all the body
Thrust after it,
For I go
Gladly to the rose’s
Soft flesh,
Plunge myself within
To be enveloped
Wholly in petal silk
And scents of dreams,
Sweet as the loveliest
Material or lovers skin
Impregnated with sunshine,
Fine nectars, oils and essences.
For a moment I am lost,
Dipped as I am
In relaxation
Of all but the only sense in the world:
The pure thing found
In candied whorl
Of the rose’s
Delicate unwind
And fragrant shimmering.
© Ben Truesdale and distilledvoice, 2015
Wild Garlic
In the cool
Beneath the dappling,
Groves of wild garlic
Grow lush:
Flowers thrust
To the damp and shadow
As wanton spires
Of creamy white petal
And green, sweet scent
Speak of soil, rich
With root bound nutrient
Of the earth found hollow.
© Ben Truesdale and distilledvoice, 2015
Divinity
Not in the stone
Or the frame of the flowers,
Not in the lawn or the trees
Or the generous borders.
Only in the eye
Who perceives,
The I
Who perceives.
© 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
Stone Is Stone
Stone is stone
To the snail and the lichen:
A road and a home.
Only we
Go beyond the obvious,
Dedicating towers
To our gods
And philosophies.
© Ben Truesdale and distilledvoice, 2015
It Is Given
There but a breath from here
Flows the ever stream
Of loveliness.
There in the body
Flows its warm mist,
Delightful as spring energy.
It says without words.
It says
If listened to or ignored.
It says nevertheless
And cares not for being heard
Or even acknowledged.
It is gift
For it is given without clause,
No distinction
Is Required, demanded or extorted.
It is a gift for all,
Without division
Or judgement imposed.
All may quench their thirst:
Worthy or unworthy
Good or bad as they come.
It just comes
For it is given to all.
© Ben Truesdale and distilledvoice, 2015
distilledvoice 