Relationships

Poem 132 – Shhhh….

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Let’s all keep mum, keep schtum
‘Cause careless talk costs lives
So cross your heart and hope
To die, don’t let the cat
Out of its bag

Please keep it under wraps
Don’t tell a soul, just tap
Your nose with knowing look
A wink perhaps no more
I plea, than that

And if not wraps, perhaps
A hat will do the job
Along with poker face
To keep it in its place
Our secret, shhh….

Work has kept me occupied of late, diverting creative juices, but when my Dad announced the theme of his next poetry groups meeting, I couldn’t resist.
(16.06.22)

© Ben Quant 2022
Photo by Kat Smith: https://www.pexels.com/photo/woman-placing-her-finger-between-her-lips-568025/

Poem 126 – Man of a Thousand Faces

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I possess a thousand faces
That’s one for every relationship
One for each time and mood and place
The one you know me by is not
The one recognised by my wife
Or friends or even enemies
The one I wear today is not
The same as yesterday, not quite
Experience has shaped, eroded,
And flexed it, making something new
But which of these is really me?
Are they all? Or none at all?
Is there throughout an essential core
Coded within, like human rock?
Or am I simply jetsam, washed
About by random tides of life

The announcement of the new Doctor got me thinking about the different faces we all wear.
(10.05.22)

© Ben Quant 2022

Poem 121 – This Time

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This morning’s prompt
A photo from this date
Taken a previous year

A smiling face looks out
I watch you past, eyes meeting
The younger you responds

This frozen moment lives
Superimposed on others
The album of our life

The weft and weave of time
The strands that cross the years
Entwining us together

Every morning my phone reminds me of photos taken this day in previous years. Today’s featured an arresting look at the camera as you walked past.
(28.04.22)

© Ben Quant 2022

Poem 114 – Fading

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Here lies the stone that stood above my grave
Declaring this to be my resting place
But sadly it no longer has the strength
To stand and lies prostrate in peace like me

The lichen spreads rash-like across its face
Obliterating with the green ivy
My life, my wife, my children and my work
The final thoughts of those who paid the bill

Now who I was is legible no longer
As gradually the elements erode
The once clear words that hold me so
I slip from view and slowly pass from memory

We’ve been away for a few days, exploring my wife’s family tree. This involves visiting graveyards and poking around ancient churches. Straining to read old gravestones I wondered how we’re remembered when the writing’s finally gone.
(05.04.22)

© Ben Quant 2022

Poem 112 – The Award Goes To…

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One cracks a joke
And in response
It gets slapped down

To rein us in
It used to be
Your eye for mine

But violence met
With more violence
Is twice the pain

A better way
Must surely be
To turn the cheek

This act of strength
Defies the bully
Without becoming one

Is violence the best response? An eye for an eye was only meant to stop us from escalating levels of revenge in the name of justice, but does it make things right? I’m not sure it does.
(29.03.22)

© Ben Quant 2022

Poem 111 – Circular Identity

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Remember childhood years that stretched
Where nothing seemed to change at all
Except our teeth. Remember how
They used to hang on fragile threads
Forever, wiggled by the tongue
Until one day they disappeared?

Eventually a switch was flicked
New genes asserted influence
A sudden surge, the teenage kick
With child and adult overlaid
Doubly exposed awhile before
The hormone shock shook out the child
A whiskey burn that makes us wince

A newborn person stands before
A mirror wondering ‘Who am I?
Where is the manual that informs
Us how to be a grown-up in
This strange and unfamiliar world?’
Until one day a match is made
Where each completes the other’s question

A few years on the subject shifts
A babe becomes its object as
We ask who it might take after
Ironic really as our process
Of metamorphosis has ended
The circle finally has closed
And we’ve become our parents and
The children’s teeth are getting loose

Nature or nurture?
(28.03.22)

© Ben Quant 2022

Poem 109 – A Sea of Life

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The doors open and in they flood
Like waves some crash with confidence
Relentless tide displacing toys

Whilst others, human barnacles
Cling to their carers’ legs constrained
Fearful of blundering bulldozers

Finally in the flotsam drifts
Worn down by lack of precious sleep
And full of care and caffeine highs

Every Wednesday our church holds its toddler group and I get to play and call it work. Its amazing how within moments a carefully set up room can look as if it has been hit by a tidal wave.
(23.03.22)

© Ben Quant 2022

Poem 108 – Reunion

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Bathing South Down hills
The sun accompanies us
Smiling while we reminisce
A stroll across the years

Faithful orb that shines on us
Before at night retreating
Only to return again
Its loyalty unwavering

Nothing is required of us
No need for filling gaps
Simply being is enough
Silence is not amiss

Finally descending with
Its gentle amber kiss
Waves farewell as we depart
This friendship that persists

Managed to snatch a couple of days walking with old friends from Imperial this weekend. The intervening decades meant nothing.
(21.03.22)

© Ben Quant 2022

Poem 106 – Memory

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Not all bridges are forged in sweat and steel
Nor do they all traverse the globe but some
Convey us by our dreams and thoughts
Down secret passages unique to us

A scent transports us back to musty classrooms
Or changing rooms, slick with rowdy teenage bodies
Forgotten fragrances summon unbidden the past
Awakening lost relationships with force

The taste of lamb and fresh mint sauce steals me
To Sunday lunches at my grandparents’
The sound of knives chopping the herb just picked
With acid tang of vinegar poured over

Opening the photo album I’m once again
Surrounded by the Austrian Alps of Mayrhofen
I see you smiling at me from the lake
And savour afresh our early wedded life

These bridges are not solid in construction
As their physical counterparts may be
But shift as tidal waves flow on the sand
Capricious and yet precious in their rarity

My earlier poem about Brunel’s suspension bridge originally had other bridges in view. The discounted concept reappeared today.
(16.03.22)

© Ben Quant 2022

Poem 102 – Rooted

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My weary inbox yawns, bored of
The soulless messages it circulates
But look, lurking amongst the drudge something
Deeper, my DNA results are in
This past geneticist is thrilled to find
The web of coded chains traversed
Binding in double-helix unity
Ancestral homes, ethnicity revived
I trace the paths along this oak’s branches
Running my finger past the unfamiliar
Whom suddenly belong to me and I
To them, my relatives, my blood unveiled
I now can claim with confidence that I
Stand on this ancient shore’s foundation
Its past and mine are spiritually entwined
My roots drink deeply, nourishing my soul
Whilst rooted in one spot its branches spread
Beyond as do its tendrils out of sight
To permeate Germanic past to reach
Beyond white cliffs to Scandinavian sands

My Ancestry DNA test findings have been released. Suddenly I have a lot more relatives.
(03.03.22)

© Ben Quant 2022