We land.
It’s dark.
Just silhouettes
and hints
suggest
the scenery.
We arrived late tonight for an overdue and needed holiday. Wonderful hints of the hills and sea around us.
(30.10.23)
© Ben Quant 2023
Author: BenDQ
Poem 211 – Ascending Donard
Booted we seek to climb,
assert ourselves, impose
our will. Slieve Donard howls.
Fierce tears define its shape,
sharpen it’s angst and contours.
Woken, it’s rage defies
our rise and pushes back.
Determined, we persist
and brace against the gale.
Our worlds compress until,
heads bowed, each walks alone.
This wild and reckless peak
doesn’t surrender meekly.
Recently I met with flatmates from university days to go walking in Northern Ireland. Our first walk was a climb to the peak of Slieve Donard, the highest point in Northern Ireland. The weather raged as weather should on such a walk. It was truly magnificent!
(30.10.23)
© Ben Quant 2023
Poem 210 – Autumn Mornings
Zoe Ball speaks and yet the world is dark?
I double check in case the clock deceives.
Alas, it doesn’t. Zombie-like I rise.
The morning’s urgency has drained away,
its greyscale smear a strain upon my soul.
Even our pot plants share this weariness;
their flowers droop, they hang their heads in shame,
and outside in the dark the trees stand bare.
I’m not a morning man. Our alarm clock plays Radio Two to wake us up. It now sounds before the sun rises. This is not a good combination.
(25.10.23)
© Ben Quant 2023
Photo by Sonja Langford on Unsplash (original in colour)
Poem 209 – River Reynard
The early morn.
Two foxes sprinting
fluid and fast.
Coursing the street
their game of tag
washes its banks.
4am. I’m up early to catch a plane, walking to the local train station. In my peripheral vision I spot a red blur. Two foxes with more energy than me fly past.
(06.10.23)
© Ben Quant 2023
Photo by Wen Zhu on Unsplash
Poem 208 – Including Judas
My table stretches,
extends so all
can gather round
to eat.
Pictures of the Last Supper always feature a large table – it would have to be to accomodate the twelves disciples as well as Jesus! It always fascinates me that Jesus welcomed them all to share such an intimate and pivotal meal, especially Judas, who he knew was about to betray him. What is this? Foolishness? Naivety? Or simply an act of inclusive grace?
(See also the end of this post by by Nadia Bolz-Weber)
(02.10.23)
© Ben Quant 2023
Image by Leonardo da Vinci – High resolution scan by http://www.haltadefinizione.com/ in collaboration with the Italian ministry of culture. Scan details, Public Domain, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=3032252
Poem 207 – Stranger-Danger (or ‘To Peddlers of Fear’)
It started with a journey on
the road to Jericho,
a dangerous route through dark shadows
that gathered down below,
where gruff bandits would grimly wait
to bring brave travellers low.
One cudgel swing is all it took
to land a stunning crack.
It sent our traveller spinning round
and landing with a thwack.
They stripped him of his clothes and riches
ripped them from his back.
It’s time to turn the inside out
and bring the outside in,
to learn that God sees everyone
with love despite our sin.
But do not fear he’s not alone
behind him comes a priest,
the highest in the hierarchy
the first at any feast,
you’d like to think that he would stop
and offer hope at least.
But no, he crosses over to
the far side of the street,
then hurries past without delay
propelled by hasty feet,
you see, he fears that blood’s unclean
and he could be deceased.
It’s time to turn the inside out
and bring the outside in,
to learn that God sees everyone
with love despite our sin.
Next up a Levite walking fast
to catch up with his friend.
They both work at the temple and
he’ll meet him round the bend,
but look, he spies the battered body
and I guess, you guess, the trend!
His mate has made his mind up for him
not stopping to assist,
a guilty grin then moving on
he did not want to miss,
the chance to make their rendezvous
their plans, his needs, dismissed.
It’s time to turn the inside out
and bring the outside in,
to learn that God sees everyone
with love despite our sin.
So who’s up next in this our list?
You’d guess an average bloke,
someone who had a normal job,
one of the common folk,
but no, it’s stranger-danger time,
take care, this is no joke.
You see the next to come along
is not from round these parts,
he’s one of ‘them Samaritans’
no, he won’t have a heart,
’cause they’re a bunch of heretics
From true faith they depart.
It’s time to turn the inside out
and bring the outside in,
to learn that God sees everyone
with love despite our sin.
Without a moment’s hesitation
he stoops to check him out,
to wash his wounds and bind them up
without a single doubt,
then tenderly he lifts him on
his donkey strong and stout.
From there he risks a journey to
a nearby Jewish inn.
He gives the host two coins to start
if they would care for him
and promises that he’ll return
to ensure that they’re quids-in.
It’s time to turn the inside out
and bring the outside in,
to learn that God sees everyone
with love despite our sin.
This story ended with a question
to an expert in the law,
‘which one was like a neighbour
to the man left on the floor?’
He found it hard to say although
we know, he knew, for sure
‘The one who showed him mercy’ was
the most he could reply.
It’s easy to see good in those
we love, but hard to try,
to see it in the ones we hate
the ones we’d rather die.
You peddlers of the politics
of fear and hate and lies,
who spread a gospel telling us
who we must all despise,
I’m sure that Jesus would cry out
‘Please go and do likewise!’
It’s time to turn the inside out
and bring the outside in,
to learn that God sees everyone
with love despite our sin.
A couple of years ago I discovered the joy of Bob Hartman’s Rhyming Bible. Having explored the parable of the Good Samaritan at church last Sunday, I thought I’d have a go at rendering it along similar lines, although mine comes with a little bite at the end, as befits Jesus’ parables and, dare I suggest, politics. It has a refrain, meant for everyone to read along to.
(30.09.23)
© Ben Quant 2023
Photo by Ggia, dust spots/scratches removed by Kim Hansen. Edges cropped due to scan. Further restoration improvements using masks by Ggia., CC BY-SA 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons
Poem 206 – Empty Nest Syndrome
A shelf of shoes, unmatched and overflowing
A sock left in the laundry all alone
A pair of glasses for computer working
A charger from a previous mobile phone
Some letters sent obliviously, now stacked
Awaiting reading like that dusty book
A pile of magazines stuffed in the rack
Remember your promise to one day take a look
Now fully fledged our chick has flown the nest
And found a home that she can call her own
I wonder when she’ll come and get the rest, ’cause
We’re longing for some empty nest syndrome!
Allegedly, our daughter’s left home. Looking around, I’m not yet totally convinced!
(20.09.23)
© Ben Quant 2023
Original photo by Robert Thiemann on Unsplash
Poem 205 – The Memories of a Time Traveller
When I was little, time stretched out
but now I find the past, present
and future are condensed and tight.
From here, my former selves converge
just like a Doctor Who special.
I wonder how it ends?
Perhaps
it’s like a concertina flow:
relax, compress, relax once more?
What if, however, it’s a black hole:
relax, compress, compress, compress?
Is there a memory time horizon
past which our recollections are
so dense they can’t escape?…
When I was young the wars seemed so
far back, but now they seem so close;
my parents seemed so old, but now
I find they were younger than I am today.
A year is but a month, a month
a week, a week a day, time slides,
and like a fairground hall of mirrors
the path’s confused and found distorted.
Within the glass I see the man
that I’ll become, imposed upon
the timefree boy I used to be.
As Doctor Who once famously said that time isn’t linear, but actually is, ‘like a big ball of wibbly wobbly… time-y wimey… stuff‘. Maybe it’s something to do with having passed the half-century, but I’m certainly finding this to be increasingly true.
(18.09.23)
© Ben Quant 2023
Photo by Mick Haupt on Unsplash
Poem 204 – Ghosts of Salone*
I felt it then, the first time that I stepped
outside the plane in Lungi International.
Enveloped by a suffocating blanket,
I stood, arrested by the heavy air.
The skies were dark, I could not see its palms,
but soon I found that mine were damp.
This pattern would repeat each morning as
we left our air-conditioned chalets and
exclaimed ‘it’s hot again’, as if surprised.
As if…
These vibrant midnight scenes still tarry.
The virgin walk across the unknown runway
towards conflicting voices, thick and urgent.
The chaos. Papers waved. Bribes sought. Unmoored.
Sidestepping through the scrum to find our car.
Escape. A momentary peace behind the windscreen.
We drive past twinkling kerosene and figures
emerging from the darkness, eyes lit up,
rushing to meet the ferry at the harbour;
meeting instead a herd of cars. We sit,
the mercury rising, ‘midst the midnight hawkers.
Cicada lullabies meet drowsy eyes.
The ferry never comes. ‘It’s broken down.’
This news does not inspire my confidence.
‘Don’t worry there are two’, I’m told, ‘the other
will soon arrive.’ Alas, that’s late as well.
Strapped in, I sleep a stuffy, restless sleep,
one eye half open so as not to miss
the novelty, the other stupefied with heat.
A decade on and home, I find September’s
unexpected heatwave stirs up old ghosts
wakes up, recalls, these vivid memories
of sticky hands and distant drowsy streets.
* As Sierra Leone is sometimes known by its people.
Walking out in the hottest day of the year yesterday awoke memories of my first moments in Sierra Leone some twenty years ago.
(11.09.23)
© Ben Quant 2023
Poem 203 – Before
The lull before the storm, dark clouds are gathering
I’m waiting for the punch(line), my stomach’s tumbling
Holding my breath, as butterflies are swarming
I check my watch, anticipation’s clawing,
Its second hand is creeping, time is dawdling
It’s slowed right to a stop, and I’m left…
……………………………………………………………..dangling
The wait’s more painful than the actual happening
I suspect we all know what it’s like in the build up to a significant event: an interview, exam, funeral or moment of personal conflict. I don’t know about you, but usually I find the build up worse than the climax. I don’t usually rhyme like this, but this time it accidentally fell into that rhythm. Like most poetry, best spoken out loud.
(09.09.23)
© Ben Quant 2023
Photo by Agê Barros on Unsplash
Ode for the Day 
