youth

Road Towards Stasis

~ distilledvoice ~ 2 Comments

The old man watches
as time races:
all the young
frothing in its leading edge,
powerful on its surge,
the wave on which they surf:
confident like fearless children.

He was like them
in his unbeknownst youth,
careless with the ideas
of others: tossing them
for the new and exciting,
rubbishing the staid
and stilled establishment.

It irks him now,
not to see his work dismissed,
but that he has succumbed
to ageing’s inevitable drift
into beliefs hardening:
all of what he knows torn,
by the turn of the unconcerned,
from his grasp to hold it static.

© Ben Truesdale and distilledvoice, 2016

Journey

~ distilledvoice ~ Leave a comment

Where is the boy lost
In the journey to the man?
Where is the balance point
In which he slips in metamorphosis
Through youth toward old age,
In transit of time’s
Morphing body become?

Perhaps he is not lost
But changed in skin
And greying hair
And stiffness in the bones,
The boy alive
But draped in memory’s
Encrustations
That sway the free thoughts
Of boyish dreams
From all their boyish freedoms.

© Ben Truesdale and distilledvoice, 2016

Teenage Smoker

~ distilledvoice ~ Leave a comment

He smokes
Like he might find
The answer
Dragged through the filter tip,
As if his mood
Were hunger
And the inhalation
A type of food.

His smoulder
Is in his eyes,
His low hung head
And in dark shadows
Beneath his hood,
Where the ember burns,
Pulsing brighter
With each insistent pull.

He smokes
As if it were a cloak
Of defiance
And comfort mixed,
A dressing
For his sulking bruise,
An action instead of words
Passing the gateway of his lips.

He says it all
In silence
And half smoked butts
Finger flicked
And littering
The thresholds of doorways
And the brick walls he’s leant against.

© Ben Truesdale and distilledvoice, 2016

The Celebrity Face

~ distilledvoice ~ 2 Comments

The fear of movement
Steers the knife
And stills the flesh
In to a mask,
Free of wrinkles
And evidence
Of time past
And existence happening.

As if the demanding child
Were given
Its every shouted wish,
To go against
Life’s natural ageing path
And join
The Yes-Men horde
Branding the tampered
And augmented look
As the ‘must be’
– New beautiful –
For every old
Who holds too tight
To that which
Has long since departed.

© Ben Truesdale and distilledvoice, 2016

Youff Of Oxford

~ distilledvoice ~ 2 Comments

i is liack
d rapper
in d cloves,
slouchin offa me,
all shadey, liack,
coz
i is under ground
in me finkin

coz, i got dat
fuz
of d weed
on me, liack
and
me liack d gangster
doin d deals
on d street
and d back street, rite

but i as this secret, rite
i is from d middle class
ma mom
she liack,
is whiat
and munches dem olives
and liack go down
waitrose, and liack, votes
an all dat

but don’t tell no one, rite
coz we tite,
rite.

© Ben Truesdale and distilledvoice, 2015