Sometimes a poem arrives unbidden
You’re simply minding your own business
And in it barges unrequested.
On other occasions you start to write
And hunting with your pen you stumble
Over it’s fully formed treasures.
And sometimes you have to fight for it
Like Jacob, refusing to let go
Of it until you receive its blessing.
Inspiration is a slippery thing…
(04.12.24)
© Ben Quant 2024
Photo by Jan Kahánek on Unsplash
In Aymara they say the past
is not behind us but before,
it’s the future that’s obscured
This country’s one we know,
its peaks and troughs have been well trod,
we’ve walked them all our lives,
whereas the future’s yet
unseen, its contours strange to us,
continuous but obscured.
It’s hidden from view. Like drunks,
we stumble backwards tugging the veil
to find out where we’ve been.
A while back I read a fascinating article on the BBC website about the relationship between time and language and space. The way some invert our usual concept of the past being behind us and the future before us caught my attention.
(01.08.24)
© Ben Quant 2024
Photo by Kaspars Eglitis on Unsplash
my neurons’ pulsing electro beat
the rhythm of hormonal flow
my parents genes and nurture’s feat
the past drags me along in tow
i’m born my culture’s bastard child
a pinch of this, a dash of that
in tension with each other held
the product of a life compact
my jobs, my pets and what i ate
the microbes that within me grow
my prejudices obstinate
the lingering trace of where i go
i find within a tug of war
between these different identities
to separate them is to tear
it’s never i, it’s always we
it takes the world to raise a child
and this child is never truly free
from each and every one compiled
but no regrets, they made me me
For all sorts of reasons, I’ve found myself thinking a lot about identity, the sense of being distinct but influenced by so many factors. Sheldrake’s ‘Entangled Life’ raises the question of whether or not we are more network than individual. Provocative.
(21.03.24)
© Ben Quant 2024
Photo by Alina Grubnyak on Unsplash
Your verse hasn’t faded,
just merely passed along
Watson’s famed double-helix,
finding a new voice in me,
your son. Your words still speak.
I may not have your humour,
my poems don’t twinkle like
yours do, so mimicking
your eyes as you read them.
They have a different accent.
But underneath they share
that same urge to be spoken,
to find a way to be
formed and found and so heard.
Nature and nurture guide me.
I write and hear us speaking
shared turn of phrase, and see
a familiar gesture.
I smile in recognition
and wonder whose turn’s next.
Dad has always written verse, verse that’s made me smile and groan and think. Recently he’s found his fading memory has militated against this. I think he’s felt the loss. Dad, your poems have inspired mine. I hope that in some way through them you speak on.
(31.08.23)
© Ben Quant 2023
Photo by Sangharsh Lohakare on Unsplash
I collect people.
Not in an album like
a stamp collector, or
macabre jars like some
demented serial killer,
but in my memories.
Childhood friends stand by
eccentric teachers that
inspire and shape my path.
Loved relatives are filed
with heroes of the stage
and teenage heartbreakers.
Congregation members,
that walked with us awhile,
together with neighbours
who passed our window daily,
their names undiscovered.
Did they know each other?
Time to time I take
them out and dust them down,
revisit, reminisce.
These familiar faces,
both intimate and distant,
make up my life’s matrix.
I am in reference to them,
embedded and defined.
There is no island life.
A conversation at church about personalities who have been part of our family over time prompted the phrase ‘we collect people’. This stuck in my head and eventually prompted this poem.
(20.02.23)
© Ben Quant 2023
Photo by Raj Rana on Unsplash (Original in colour)
Weft
The Ayatollah screams, in ’89,
his cruel fatwa over Rushdi, judgement
upon his blasphemous work. In contrast,
proud fist raised in 90, Mandela stands
defiant, tasting freedom. His smile disarms.
Warp
Go back. In ’83 bold scoundrels snatch
Shergar from underneath our noses, boldly
driving their horsebox to his door. Go further.
In ’52, the King is dead. A princess
is lost in Kenya, long live our new found Queen.
This week winds back and forth, its tapestry
an intertwining web. Created by
its stitches, we’re not free but bound and shaped,
informed and influenced, held by its threads.
However, choice exists; we choose which strands
to trace and which to weave for those to come.
Inspired by the BBC’s ‘This Week in History’ earlier this week (8-14th February).
(11.02.23)
I’m told we’re what we eat,
If so, I’m made of words.
My mum discovered this
On catching me red-handed,
The soggy contents page
Of the Oxford Dictionary
Left mushed between my jowls.
It seems I am comprised
Of definitions and vowels.
My limbs are formed of nouns
Like leg and arm and elbow.
Elbow is one of my favourites.
Say it slow. El-bow.
How satisfying it is
To wrap your tongue around
It’s form, enunciate
It carefully and full,
Admire its letter form.
Then there are the others,
Obscure and strangely named,
Like supercillium,
And islets of Langerhans.
I learnt of them at school,
But haven’t mentioned them,
Again until the present.
Turns out such beautiful words,
Can never be unlearnt.
But nouns are not the whole
Of me, I’m also made
Of verbs like dream and think,
And leap and hesitate,
Gesticulate and frown,
Digest, impress, caress,
And rest, oh yes, let’s rest
Our tired nouns a while
And let the verbs address.
Or better still send out
Our adverbs, illumination
Their one and only role.
They slyly, kindly find
A motivation for me.
Swiftly, powerfully, patiently,
Reveal me. Show what lies
Hid deep within me. Yes,
It’s true. I’m made from words.
True story, I was discovered as a little one, eating a dictionary! Reminiscing got me thinking about language, and how our understanding of the world and ourselves is framed by it.
(15.12.22)
© Ben Quant 2022
Ode for the Day 