Arts & Literature

Poem 311 – Sheep, Sleep, Dream

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Counting sheep?
That’s what we do when
we want to summon sleep.
We close our eyes and count
That bundle of black and white.

1, 2, 3…

And soon the bleating fades
Becoming clouds that float
In a dreamy eyelid landscape.
That one resembles a friend
I used to know before,
In a school that used to be
Big but now is small.

4, 5, 6…

The red bricks reconfigure
Become our childhood home.
We gather, play that game
We invented once, one lazy
Summer holiday.
I count, you run. We argue.
We laugh and laugh and laugh.

7, 8, 9…

My kite drifts higher and higher,
Outlined crisply against
The blue. I join it, weightless
And fly across the fields.
I’m met elsewhere by someone
Who doesn’t belong, not here, not now.
This interruption passes
Unnoticed. For now it makes sense.

10, 11, 12…

I’m pedaling on my bike,
Feeling great and weightless.
Roaming at will. Freedom.
I absorb the neighbourhood,
Visiting its corners,
Extremities and folds.
Its blanket smothers me.

13, 14, 15…

The face of a first girlfriend,
Holding hands, first kiss.
Long hair, guitars, the band.
Aspirations that
One day I’ll find that note
And take it around the globe.

16, 17, 18…

That sheep reminds me of
The teacher who inspired me.
See, that plant he gave me
Is growing up and up
like Jack’s beanstalk, it
devours it all. We run.

19, 20, 21…

It’s funny how the faces
We revisit, are all
The old ones, childhood ones.
Black devours white
until the morning light
brings day, and all’s forgotten.

52 and counting…

It’s National Poetry Day, and the theme is counting. I set out to write a poem about the Parable of the Lost Sheep, which is all about counting, but the poem wouldn’t have it and instead took me elsewhere. Poems do that. Not so long ago I was reminiscing with my parents, I guess that’s partly where this poem comes from – I’m 52 by the way. The older we get, the more we seem to spend in our childhood.
(03.10.24)

© Ben Quant 2024
Photo by Christopher Burns on Unsplash

Poem 308 – On Meeting Neil Hannon

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Let’s get the obvious out of the way,
the biggies like thou shalt not kill,
or covert thou neighbour’s wife or ox.

(I’d like to think that surely now
we’d not equate a cow and a woman
or see them both as property).

And then there’s those that allegedly linger
Like not eating mince pies at Christmas
or providing a range to practice archery.

But what exactly is the etiquette
regarding bumping into one’s hero
in a queue for the urinals in the interval?

Is a nod of the head appropriate?
I would guess so. My quandary is,
what is our stance on autographs?

A real encounter at a Duke Special gig. None of us were knew how to respond to his presence.
(30.09.24)

© Ben Quant 2024
Photo by Erik Mclean on Unsplash

Poem 305 – Four Magic Words

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Some talk of those three magic words.
Don’t get me wrong, they’re great, and best
when followed by another two:
‘I love you’ echoed by, ‘You too.’

There are four more, their simplicity
childlike and plain, a single breath.
They too are words of promise pledged
to travel forwards hand in hand.

These words are words of invitation,
come let’s explore new worlds together;
four doors of glorious imagination,
opening, ‘Once upon a time’.

Looking back over some of my first poems, I thought today I might rework ‘Poem 12 – Magic Words‘ from 20.10.22 into a more regular metre.
(27.09.24)

© Ben Quant 2024
Photo by Jan Tinneberg on Unsplash

Poem 302 – I Will Never

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I shall never scale the heights of Everest,
explore the alien ocean depths beneath,
or skydive from the breathless edge of space.

I’ll never run the fastest 100 metres,
hop, step and jump into the record books,
or climb the podium of the Tour de France.

I will never win the Nobel Prize,
for scientific discoveries as yet undreamt,
or finally nailing down the theory of everything.

My paintings will not hang next to Van Gogh’s,
my verse be ranked with sonnets by the Bard,
or songs be played upon the radio.

My name will quickly fade from recollection,
there will not be biographies of me,
nor obituaries typed up in The Times.

But I will strive to love and that’s enough.
For love is all that’s truly asked of us,
and Love will be my harvest and reward.

Today I’ve been thinking about what it means to be fruitful as I’ve been planning various Harvest celebrations I shall be involved in. Paul’s words in Galatians 5:22 came to mind, ‘But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, forbearance, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, 23 gentleness and self-control’.
(24.09.24)

© Ben Quant 2024

Poem 299 – A Recipe for a Fantastic Childhood

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To start, prepare a base
of knights from Arthur’s Court.
and a dash of Robin Hood.
Stir with diced Norse legends.
Leave to simmer with a Hobbit,
thirteen dwarfs, a wizard
and an ancient dragon.
Add a sprinkling of Old Ones
and once the Dark has risen,
accompany with a garnish
of Garner, Brisingamen and owls.

Inspired by seeing a copy of Alan Garner’s brilliant Treacle Walker at my parent’s house. The owl is in their garden.
(21.09.24)

© Ben Quant 2024

Poem 294 – I’ve Never Known Your Voice

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The view across the lake,
from the crest of Cader Idris.
The eyes of my life’s love as
she glances in my direction.

Feeling B.B. King’s vibrato
and Gary Moore’s sustain.
The emotional release of
an encore’s delighted applause.

The rich aroma released
from freshly ground coffee beans.
The taste of blue cheese. It shouldn’t
work but somehow it does.

Snuggling up on the sofa
and finding another’s world.
Talking to a gathered crowd
and holding them in your hands.

Discovering flamingo
mouths are upside down
so they can eat with their heads
between their distant feet.

Black and white images
formed within the womb.
The sight of freshborn signets
their feathers still damp with shell.

I’ve never known your voice,
not heard you talk out loud,
and yet, it strikes me that,
you’ve never really stopped.

Someone mentioned to me the other day that they’d heard God speak, and this got me thinking. I’ve never had that privilege, and yet…
(16.09.24)

© Ben Quant 2024
Photo NotFromUtrecht, CC BY-SA 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons

Poem 293 – Bigger on the Inside

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A wall of circles trace eternity.
In contrast, a wooden hat-stand speaks of home.
This is a strange yet familiar place whose walls
encompass everyone who dares to enter.
Somehow, in here, there’s room for all regardless
of where or when they come from, what their tribe –
it’s bigger on the inside than the out.
Nearby, a central pillar oscillates
in hopeful motion, gently rising and sinking.
We wait, prepared for imminent transportation.
At last lights dim, our childhood theme begins,
and years begin to peel… dee dum de dum,
dee dum de dum, dee dum de dum, ooh wee ooh….

Tonight I experienced the delight of attending the live reading/recording of Big Finish’s ‘The Stuff of Legend’ in celebration of their 25th anniversary. What a treat it was! If you’ve not heard a dalek doing a sound-check, you haven’t lived!

(15.09.24)

© Ben Quant 2024

Poem 290 – First Bite

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Freshly plucked, I wipe the apple
upon my jumper (it’s first outing
this year). It’s sharpness suits the air.

Chomping upon its core (I always
eat apples whole), I find myself
wondering about Snow White and witches.

A single bite is all it took
to curse our heroine with death-
like sleep that lasts ’til Charming comes.

Should I worry that like Adam
I’ve brought upon us Autumn’s sleep,
a sleep that lasts ’til Spring’s first kiss?

After taking assembly today, a local head offered me an apple from a tree growing on their grounds. It was green and tart but lovely!
(12.09.24)

© Ben Quant 2024
Photo by Nathan Dumlao on Unsplash

Poem 284 – Tied Up In Knots

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Today I’m trying to write a villanelle,
A poetic form with many tortured lines.
The truth of the matter? It’s not going well.

The rhyming pattern’s also one hard sell,
So don’t go picking words with limited rhymes.
Today I’m trying to write a villanelle.

There’s also certain lines you must retell,
A complicated web you must combine.
The truth of the matter? It’s not going well.

I suppose it’s a form of poets’ show and tell,
‘Look at me, my verse you’ll find’s sublime!’
Today I’m trying to write a villanelle.

The mental strain is making me unwell,
Such grappling with a devious design.
The truth of the matter? It’s not going well

So if you can these challenges dispel,
Perhaps for you it could be worth your time.
Today I’m trying to write a villanelle,
The truth of the matter? It’s not going well…

Watching TV this evening Dylan Thomas’ ‘Do not go gentle into that good night’. Remembering it is a villanelle, I had to have another go at writing one.
(06.09.24)

© Ben Quant 2024
Photo by Eric Prouzet on Unsplash