Benjamin Charles Reed
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Benjamin Charles Reed
@b-c-reed.bsky.social
93 followers 54 following 240 posts
Poetry from the musings of a Deaf writer.
Original poems. ✍🏻️
Early Thirties
From England, In Scotland

Instagram: @deaf.poet
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A new short poem from myself.

'Apricity'

#Poetry #WritingCommunity #PoetsOnBluesky #Poem
Slow morning light revealed beauty, where winter had frozen the dew to allow it to stay a while… to see the sky shift to arctic blue from its obsidian darkness. Still grass brushed with velvet frost, rooftop icicles soon to be gone. Hoarfrost coated on boughs and leaves melted under the red robin’s song greeting the amber apricity.
December 7, 2025 at 8:17 AM
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It's been a minute, so here's a new poem.

Silence in the Cabin.

#PoetsOnBluesky #Poem #Poems #WritingCommunity #Deafness
They tell me they’re jealous of my hearing aids, ‘cause with a switch I can sink into nothing. Told it’s a luxury, that I’m lucky, but they just want to drown out some things. Some things that drive them mad. But if I bask in this “God given silence”, I miss the call of some beautiful things. The patter of rain and slapping flutter of the slick ink blackbird wings heading to shelter in shedding trees. The trickling of a stream as the snow melts and the crunching of it under my boot. The crackling of the fire as I tire and awaken to the early owl hoot to start the day with bubbling water turned black. The whistle sneaking through the cabin door as clouds crumble together to form their storm. Above, piling snow makes the creaking grow, I sit in the last moments, warm… and then finally, nothing.
November 18, 2025 at 2:15 PM
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Adding poems. Formatting. Chapbook collection is finally getting further.

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Blurred image of a Word document showing fragments of poems being formatted.
October 13, 2025 at 6:08 AM
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A short one from me, walking through the rain.

I'm too busy masking my stress and emotions
that Morning decided to paint my mood
with rain-dipped brushes on crinkled slabs

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Wet city slabs reflect passing buses and a grey sky.
October 1, 2025 at 6:20 AM
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Took a break from working on my book to finish up a poem draft I'd left on the side.

SmoKther (smo-kfur)

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I recall your motherly words obscured by a weighted white veil, croaking with nicotine shackles as you lighted the next coffin nail. Your bedroom’s creamy embossed walls painted in a smoke brushed tar coat. Ash grey ribbons wisping through sun and clinging and stinging my throat. I watched as you anxiously gnawed rough flesh of your smoke hungry cheek, picked at your fraying cuticles, then tried the patch for two more weeks. But now you make silver clouds outside, cream wallpaper untouched by tar, the weighted white veil blown away and dissipates into fresh air revealing your timid frame that magnifies the gnawing, picking. You still effortlessly roll the next to take part in more smoke sipping.
September 3, 2025 at 12:02 PM
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Working on a poem

#PoetsOnBluesky #WritingCommunity #Poetry
A blurred poem with this text readable. Your bedroom's creamy embossed walls painted in a smoke brushed tar coat, ash grey ribbons wisping through sun and clinging and stinging my throat. I watched as you anxiously gnawed rough flesh of your smoke hungry cheek,
September 2, 2025 at 11:56 AM
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Train bound. Unwind time.
Train window with a passing view of a misty covered Lake District hills.
August 8, 2025 at 11:31 AM
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Slowly getting through edits. Been busy with life and work that I've been unable to really dedicate time to the edit process. On the side I've also been drafting random non-book poems, but failing to find the motivation to finish them. Exhaustion rules. 😂

But slowly and surely.

#WritingCommunity
Black and white photo of a blurred screen showing two word docs side by side. One with edits.
August 3, 2025 at 10:42 AM
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I've been busy lately. Busy writing poems for a collection. Busy waiting anxiously for said collection to be edited. Now I'm busy applying and learning from those edits.

Been wanting to return to being active on social media, but have been basking in the absense of it.

#Poetry #WritingCommunity
An empty sunny beach paints the background. In the foreground, my blurred hand holds a Kindle as I sit on the sand.
July 28, 2025 at 5:56 PM
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Spent a bit of morning time having a tea, water, and a helping of offline poetry notes.

#WritingCommunity #PoetsOnBluesky #Poetry
A notebook open, a pen down the margin. On the table surrounding it is tea and water. The notebook includes poem drafts, written, scrawled. One about smoke and tar, the other about wind, and another about hearing aid batteries dying.
July 6, 2025 at 6:21 PM
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Turned a sorta old poem into a photo poem because ✨aesthetic ✨

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A foggy, brown-tinged beach scene with text that reads: And so I, I visited the beach, to watch it turn the fog into art. Which was art itself.
June 30, 2025 at 6:11 PM
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Additionally, you can read 'Willow' here.

#Poetry #Poems #Poem #WritingCommunity #PoetsOnBluesky
The willow tree’s bough had snapped in the storm. One end gouged the ground like a shepherd’s crook. The other near the break, clutched by leaves, while rain drowned the sound of the babbling brook. Washing line pulled taut and dipped in the middle where the bough’s tendrils; tightrope walkers. The draping leaves had finally reached the ground, and woken squirrels hide from Tawny stalkers in the chaos of colour. The grey overcast. Grooved russet branches with olivine spears that curl and wind through sage crescent swarms. The smooth tan insides of the bough tells the years Or rather, the lack of heartwood — and how few years.
June 24, 2025 at 11:40 AM
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Woke up to see the storm had ripped a large branch from the willow.

After sawing it down, and to bits, I started turning it into a poem.

Here's the draft.

#Poem #Poetry #WritingCommunity
A willow's branch hangs broken, pushing down a washing line as the rain creates a gloomy scene. The willow tree's branch had snapped in the storm. One end gouged the soil like a shepherd's crook, the other hung near the break, held by leaves; as rain drowned the sound of the babbling brook. Washing line pulled taut and dipped in the middle where the branch's tendrils; tightrope walkers. And the hanging leaves finally reached their goal,
June 14, 2025 at 2:09 PM
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'Motherly Breeze'

A short poem from me for the morning.

#Poetry #PoetsOnBluesky #WritingCommunity #Poems
The traffic lights are red under afternoon clouds. The soft wind runs its breeze through abundant tree leaves. I recall when that breeze was once loving fingers; where motherly wind weaved through my younger tree leaves. Then the lights go green.
June 5, 2025 at 6:52 AM
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Been bedridden this week, dying to write a poem. This was as much as I could muster.

#Haiku #Poetry #PoetsOnBluesky
The grass, flowers, soil; faded by spring’s savage drought. Yet the stream still weaves.
May 24, 2025 at 10:17 AM
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Current read: 'Dwell' - the latest poetry from Simon Armitage with lovely illustrations from Beth Munro.

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A book titled Dwell is held above a stream and grassy banks below.
May 20, 2025 at 6:34 AM
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And so l,
I visited the beach
to watch it turn the fog
into art.

Which was art itself.

#Poetry #WritingCommunity #PoetsOnBluesky
A beach scene, mostly obscured by heavy fog with the sun behind it all.
May 13, 2025 at 7:58 AM
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I sat at the beach yesterday from 5am - 9am.

Peace.
A rising sun coats the beach scene in a yellow hue. The sea with wooden poles peeking out. In the distance, clouds lit by the rising sun look like mountain peaks.
May 4, 2025 at 6:03 AM
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New book!

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The book 'Dream Work' by Mary Oliver held up outside under hanging pink blossom.
May 2, 2025 at 8:51 PM
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Got to visit the @poetrypharmacy.bsky.social.

Saw they were inviting people to leave a three line poem about "your favourite sound" so I wrote the haiku about my hearing aids I wrote the night before.

#Poetry #WritingCommunity #PoetryCommunity #PoetsOnBluesky
A poem written on a torn piece of paper. The sounds have filtered Through the noise Cancellation How much beauty missed? A large cabinet with poison bottles and dark-themed poetry books. A row of poetry books laid out on a table.
April 16, 2025 at 8:12 AM
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New haiku from me.

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Looming lilac clouds retreat from a rising sun carried by crow wings.
April 12, 2025 at 10:20 AM
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Haven't posted in a while. So have a new poem.

'The Boxer'

#Poetry #PoetryCommunity #WritingCommunity #PoetsOnBluesky
Today is the day he dips his knuckles in the padded gloves. The day of all days, he tips and he sways and he shifts and dives between one two jabs and some three four fives. He dips and he ducks, then goes home and fucks. He drinks and he smokes, and chokes on the smoke that’s sinked by drink; oak smoked in his throat. He laughs with a gloat while phoning a friend, to mock all the fans and talk on the plans; the fight and the spend. They plan what to do with the winnings of the fight that he threw.
April 10, 2025 at 7:24 PM
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A short haiku before work.

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Dew drops coat dawn leaves. Wind traces reaching tall trees. I ignore the time.
April 1, 2025 at 6:14 AM
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I've got a new poem! 'Grateful' explores the gratefulness of drowning in sounds, despite how painful they can be as a hearing aid user.

#PoetryCommunity #WritingCommunity #Poetry #Poems
Well, you heard Child giggling once, drawing ink dogs at the table. And you recall the long telling of the grey old man’s train fable. Then one time over dark coffee where there were no lips to be read, on account of the coffee shop waking at half-past six and dead. There are the songs you fall into, having memorised the lyrics. And the misheard words spoken out that once left them in hysterics. The allure of Lover’s soft breaths twirling through your aid tubes, sheet gripped. And the twittering of the birds in the morning, their songs, wind nicked. Despite Sound’s haunting overwhelm from the backgrounds and the foregrounds and longing to remove the aids; you’re still grateful to drown in sounds.
March 25, 2025 at 9:19 PM
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I've been working on a poetry book about deafness and felt I wasn't finding anything similar. It was a bit upsetting to not see the representation.

Yesterday, by pure chance, I stumbled on this book. Read half last night and I'm so happy to see and read it.

#PoetryCommunity #WritingCommunity
A book held into the sunlight. "The Perseverance" by Raymond Antrobus. It's a beige cream cover with a glossy black moon.
March 23, 2025 at 1:40 PM