A late night stop at the services
having just found the M4 was closed.
‘I guess you see all sorts in here?’ I asked.
‘Yes’, replied the woman in Costa,
‘The weird and the wonderful!’ She laughed.
I left with a life saving coffee,
wondering which, if either, was me.
A long day helping my daughter decorating. Diverted on the way home.
(28.07.25)
© Ben Quant 2025
Photo by Blake Verdoorn on Unsplash
An honest conversation,
A sharing of opinions,
Through letting our guards down,
And trusting one another.
Revealing ignorance,
And asking searching questions,
Opening to the other,
Two heads better than one.
I’ve had a day of activities and meetings today. A common thread has been a series of cracking conversations where we’ve genuinely learnt from each other.
(02.04.25)
The other night we gathered.
Not around a fire like
our predecessors but
around the table with
the plan of telling tales.
We started with the story
of our days. We shared frustrations
our triumphs, hopes and dreams;
wielding brushes to paint
the scene we wanted seen.
And then our make-believe.
A painting of a haunted house
investigated by
our alter-egos, bravely
searching for the truth.
Its strange, but when I hang
these portraits side by side,
there’s no denying that
the brushstrokes are the same.
Two different worlds connected.
Today the news, more stories.
A splash of colour here
a daub of darkness there,
all vying for opinion,
surreal, unreal or real?
Stories within stories.
Landscapes created by
our conflict. Colours clash
and mix, until we find
some truth emerging from them.
What is truth? I suspect that’s the question of our age. I’m increasingly aware of how we reveal and hide the truth within the stories that we tell.
(20.03.25)
© Ben Quant 2025
Photo by Ahmed Raza Kz on Unsplash
Best laid plans and all…
I said I wouldn’t do this
But hey, queue one up
It’s been a full day today. Sometimes you’ve got to do what you’ve got to do.
(27.01.25)
© Ben Quant 2025
Photo by José Martín Ramírez Carrasco on Unsplash
Sometimes a simple name can conjure a sound,
produce a tone or mood, or evoke a colour.
Try John Coltrane, Miles Davis, Herbie Hancock,
Cannonball Adderley, Wayne Shorter, Charlie Parker.
Say them out loud to enter a world now gone,
where bands chase the elusive rhythm of
adrenaline beating, coloured black and white,
and tinted blue.
Spent this afternoon working to a soundtrack of Blue Note Jazz.
(26.01.25)
© Ben Quant 2025
Photo William P. Gottlieb, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons
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)
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