Relationships

Poem 998 – The Family Tree

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An oak, or ash or pine, the basic mold,
An individual fingerprint of grain.
We see the bark, the bare exterior,
Stark trunk and fluttering leaves providing tone.

But deep beneath this personal skin there lies
A cavernous world of echoing influence,
Tracing beyond the individual tree,
It stretches out to weave through time and place.

These reaching roots slip out across the water,
Beyond tectonic plate and culture’s haste,
Like eels drawn home to their elusive Sargasso,
We all swim back and are bound to distant Adam.

Working tonight with Who Do You Think You Are in the background spawned these verses.
(09.09.26)

© Ben Quant 2026

Poem 992 – The Younger Brother…

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A younger you stares from the screen,
Straight lines across your top and teeth.
A smile of satisfaction spreads
From side to side, the awkward grin
Of early teenage years. Descending
From innocent hands a chain
Of felt balls that you’ve gently stabbed
Into existence, a blend of love
and violence. It is a scene
So often seen, the joy of craft
And creation. But look – just as within
The first there lurks a snake, awake
to every opportunity,
one eye alive, prepared to strike.

Google reminded me of this photo today. It made me smile…
(03.09.26)

© Ben Quant 2026

Poem 986 – Treasure in the Field

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Surviving portaloo roulette
And alcohol rub on broken skin,
Finding faith and hope in doubt,
And old friends, new friends, heavenly kin.

Chatting with the poet Paul
(See I can name drop too although
Predictive text turned that into
Babe drop but that’s no place to go).

Martin Joseph apologising
To George whilst summoning the sun,
Avoiding all the forecast rain
Until it all came all at once.

Singing Bohemian Rhapsody in
The dark until the power returned,
Helping strangers push their buggies
Stuck in the post-storm muddy churn.

Singing along with men from Leith,
The main stage headline show
All treasure found in the field beneath
Us even as we let it go…

Some if the highlights from today’s Greenbelt.
(28.08.26)

© Ben Quant 2026

Poem 953 – Encounters On the Tube

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He sees her canine companion and asks
if he may stroke it. She says yes
and soon they’re talking, clicking, smiling.
Names are exchanged, one Brit, one Greek,
but alas this is her stop. She panics.
Are you on Facebook? No, he says,
but by now the doors are closing down
on alternatives and what could be.

Meanwhile, in another carriage she pouts,
arranges her hair and lips and lashes,
and purring, poses for her phone
(it’s neatly perched between her nails).
She loves it and hopes the feeling’s mutual.
It’s safe at least and undemanding,
but underneath she hungers for
the danger of uncertainty.

I love people watching on the tube. These were both scenes I saw on a journey today `although they weren’t simultaneous as the poem suggests. The contrast between them was fascinating.
(26.07.26)

© Ben Quant 2026
Photo by Belinda Fewings on Unsplash

Poem 947 – One Day

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Today I buried Reynard,
Enjoyed a coffee in Spoons,
And was mistaken for Thomas Tuchel.

Today I sat beneath,
A ghostly barn owl fly-past,
And partial rusty moon.

Today has been surreal,
Disturbing and exciting,
And sometimes awe-inspiring

A long and busy day.
(20.07.26)

© Ben Quant 2026
Photo by Lou Barros on Unsplash

Poem 944 – The Lovers Meet (expanded) (The Ballad of the Wake cont.)

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Now one year on it’s time to turn
To Flanders for his wife,
Who he’d left there with his nephews,
Siward the Red and White, these two
The noblest of his men both true
In caring for her life.

Oh what a joyful reunion!
Two lovers at last combined!
Their separation was so hard,
By circumstances kept apart,
But now true love’s restored at last,
Their lives as one aligned.

United in each others arms,
Eyes locked together fast,
Two lives entwined like ivy vines,
They celebrate, two glasses of wine,
A couplet, lines that are perfectly rhymed,
Two hands so tightly clasped.

And here they would have happily stayed
But alas it wasn’t to be,
Outside these walls the world span on,
And trouble brewed that impinged upon,
Their peace and joy so freshly won,
That longed to blossom free.

Expanding and placing in context the reunion of Hereward and Turfrida in yesterday’s poem.
(17.07.36)

© Ben Quant 2026
Photo by Will O on Unsplash