Ben Blench
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benblench.bsky.social
Ben Blench
@benblench.bsky.social
160 followers 160 following 160 posts
Magical person. Actual published poet. Freelance copywriter.
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benblench.bsky.social
Legends, both. This bit from John’s autobiography will stay with me forever LOL
Text from John Virgo’s autobiography: Once I got to the This Is Your Life studios they handed me a glass of champagne and I felt a bit better. Finally, the time came for us to do the show. My daughter and son came out, then my siblings and other relatives and friends came in one by one. Next up some of my snooker friends joined us. Alex Higgins was one of them. When he walked on we had a big hug but as he shook my hand he whispered into my ear, 'You're still a cunt'
February 4, 2026 at 3:45 PM
benblench.bsky.social
Found poem in an English language transcript of a Dutch voicemail
Garbled English transcript of a Dutch voicemail. The text reads: The heaven is a belt in for bumpness..,...•. 111 "...... Still to it, nit tango, price of the fear, telephone contact, if you can, Duncan Jahir, achheif, not that you need me, telephone is more..... 111• So, it's ain un feder to hand.. The heaven is a belt inf Garbled English transcript of a Dutch language voicemail. The text reads: hand.. The heaven is a belt in for abundance, you'll be talking about. Some a meton, spray for a muyer virodna, and it's spray for name, incident, yo, contact, and of maniram, from stone, and onsimisi.. Spelt to it, need long ago, priced of a fear, telephone contact message, you can..! going here you need me telephone
January 12, 2026 at 9:16 PM
benblench.bsky.social
Is there a more perfect last line than this?
#books #writing #gatsby #fitzgerald #lastline
Image of the last line of The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald. The text reads: "So we beat on, boats against the current, borne back ceaselessly into the past."
January 7, 2026 at 4:10 PM
benblench.bsky.social
No reason, just LOL.

Prints of this @daveyjones.bsky.social banger are available from philiplarkin.com/product/lark...

#poetry #philiplarkin #viz #space #doom
A cartoon by Davey Jones for Viz Comic. The title is "The Collected Poems of Philip Larkin in Space" We see a starship pilot warning: "Captain Larkin, our ship is caught in the gravitational pull of Doom Planet... moment by moment, we are inching inexorably towards oblivion!" Larking replies: "Tell me about it."
January 5, 2026 at 1:28 PM
benblench.bsky.social
"A hedgehog in a thicket" 🦔
Really lovely poem, this.
From Jo Matthews' debut chapbook, Sunlight Later: www.cathexisnorthwestpress.com/product-page...
Text of a poem by Jo Matthews, entitled "Birds": The branches above are breaking into the sky — as birds like ink on air swirl from trees to flight great black lungfuls of them freewheeling across the white winter sky, humming the secret rhythm of fragment to solid, then loosening into dance. Look up. I wonder what it is in me that still fears my light turning instead to the sharp inhale of darkness — and I keep thinking: don’t let me mess this up me, with my gaze skewed down to tangled ground missing this quiet kindness, this wild mess, this show. Be still. The sky is still mine if I want it the ground doesn’t care if I’m a poet or a mother the birds don’t care if the words fly out of me or fester on vein branches in my mind waiting for the perfect moment to be set free. Let go. Fear comes when you have something to lose. Once, I was a puffin on a cliff-face, a hedgehog in a thicket, a terrapin watching shadows blur on faces in the morning sun. Once, I was the white on the wave and the notes on a piano playing until the dark in my heart became a song taking flight. Under the light of a single star, I waited blindly for the call, for the hair-breath moment of arriving looking at the light for the first time shining — and a mother not sure if her child had survived. Once, I squeezed through a star-hole to be here, once, I hopscotched across the dark glass sky to claim my name, once I was the wind and the light riding hidden eddies to a freedom I didn’t know was mine. Once, I counted tears until they became stars in the sky — or poems: blossoming, or birds: laughing. Take flight.
December 6, 2025 at 9:52 AM
benblench.bsky.social
New side quest unlocked: keep the numbers in sync FOREVER
Screenshot of Ben Blench’s Bluesky profile page showing 144 followers, 144 following, and 144 posts
December 3, 2025 at 9:11 PM
benblench.bsky.social
Yes *farmers* but also this prick: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William... - "I'm awake so everyone else should be too. Also I want to play more golf". Fucking *golf*!
A screenshot of a Wikipedia page about Daylight Saving Time, highlighted text reads "Many publications credit the DST proposal to prominent English builder and outdoorsman William Willett, who independently conceived DST in 1907 during a pre-breakfast ride when he observed how many Londoners slept through a large part of a summer day. Willett also was an avid golfer who disliked cutting short his round at dusk."
October 26, 2025 at 8:15 AM
benblench.bsky.social
Sharing this little beauty by Jo Matthews from her debut poetry collection "Sunlight Later" on Cathexis Northwest Press: www.cathexisnorthwestpress.com/product-page... - ten years of love and loneliness, birth and motherhood, grief and grace, and the search for the sacred in the natural world
Text of a poem by Jo Matthews, entitled "Sometimes, who I am" Sometimes, I smoke one cigarette in the park, hiding behind the Indian restaurant, listening to poems spoken in a soft Irish voice. Sometimes, I wish those words were mine, watch daisies vibrate in the wind write down the words ‘feather’ and ‘crossable’ and ‘raven’, just in case. Sometimes, I silent-shout into my pillow at night pleading to the shining god I half-remember just to send me back to sleep, just sleep – that’s all. Sometimes, I ride my bike fast into wind as trees lean into a tunnel – a great green Mexican wave for my arrival, my heart fast and on fire as the who I was then and the who I will be race to catch up with me. What I would say to the who I was then is this: Tell the truth. Tell the truth to that gleaming cluster of wanting you lugged around: That the world will tilt and burn and smash your heart But afterwards come feather cracks that leave room for light, such light that clusters and rages in uncatchable pools. Sometimes, the heron seems to know who I am, lone hunter his blinking eye scorching forests for secret forage, knowing sometimes I wish for a freedom that will never be mine that once crossable river now a white wash of love and tethering to raven hair and wild newness, soft-cell aliveness inching with such light into the shadows that kept me safe for so long. What I would say to the who I will be who races me through the trees is this: the world tips, scorches, shatters, but anyway - now it’s too late to let go.
October 15, 2025 at 7:16 PM
benblench.bsky.social
If you're really curious about the poem you can scroll back through my posts here and find it.

Here's a photo of a swan to inspire you.
A photo of a single swan chilling out the back of the RAI exhibition centre in Amsterdam
October 2, 2025 at 8:55 AM
benblench.bsky.social
"...what the computer people don't realize..."

#dancinganimals #vonnegut #fart
Kurt Vonnegut tells his wife he's going out to buy an envelope: "Oh, she says well, you're not a poor man. You know, why don't you go online and buy a hundred envelopes and put them in the closet? And so I pretend not to hear her. And go out to get an envelope because I'm going to have a hell of a good time in the process of buying one envelope. I meet a lot of people. And, see some great looking babes. And a fire engine goes by. And I give them the thumbs up. And, and ask a woman what kind of dog that is. And, and I don't know. The moral of the story is, is we're here on Earth to fart around. And, of course, the computers will do us out of that. And, what the computer people don't realize, or they don't care, is we're dancing animals."
September 3, 2025 at 9:40 PM
benblench.bsky.social
Obviously fuck what Twitter has become but thank you @matthewmcsmith.bsky.social for doing the TopTweetTuesday thing on Bluesky.

Here’s one of mine.

#writing #poetrycommunity #writers #poet #poetic #poetrylovers #writingcommunity
Photo of Ben Blench sitting on a swan bench wearing a Powell Peralta Vato Rat baseball cap and a black shirt. Bio for poet Ben Blench: Ben Blench writes poems, hymns, and incantations about life and love. He has been published by Broken Sleep, Full House, Lamb, Rough Diamond, and Visual Verse. He lives in Amsterdam and mostly just wants to go back to bed. Text of a poem by Ben Blench, entitled "Recycling" Into the bright, wet streets To meet a friend Take a laptop for repair Light from the sun blessing Lampposts, 5G masts Tram rails, power lines Bus shelters, drain covers Cordoned-off roadworks Wardens in hi-vis suits waving Me through the junction Blue jays in a cherry tree Coming into blossom.
September 2, 2025 at 10:46 AM
benblench.bsky.social
I regret to inform you that I am back in an office, writing corporate hate poems again.
Text of a poem by Ben Blench, entitled "Seamless omni-channel experience" That was an interesting meeting You lie over lunch in the communal kitchen Some fuck has microwaved a fish curry Or something Stunk the whole place out You chew on slide after slide Of neat bullets KPIs Initiatives Learnings A drone carefully Reads each line aloud Customer delight.
August 14, 2025 at 11:26 AM
benblench.bsky.social
Micro-targeting at its finest
August 5, 2025 at 7:45 AM
benblench.bsky.social
I found this micropoem in a weirdly written iMDB synopsis of Jurassic World: Rebirth
Screenshot of four words from the iMDB synopsis of Jurassic World: Rebirth. The text reads: "Within them, a drug."
July 10, 2025 at 8:22 AM
benblench.bsky.social
New Le Guin bike basket sticker: “There is no end… all we have is means” for the special attention of @julie-phillips.com
June 25, 2025 at 2:53 PM
benblench.bsky.social
I’m rewatching Breaking Bad so heeeeeeeere’s Walt!
Text of a poem by Walt Whitman, entitled “When I heard the learn’d astronomer” When I heard the learn’d astronomer, When the proofs, the figures, were ranged in columns before me, When I was shown the charts and diagrams, to add, divide, and measure them, When I sitting heard the astronomer where he lectured with much applause in the lecture-room, How soon unaccountable I became tired and sick, Till rising and gliding out I wander’d off by myself, In the mystical moist night-air, and from time to time, Look’d up in perfect silence at the stars.
June 5, 2025 at 4:02 PM
benblench.bsky.social
I wrote a poem about this a few years ago.
Text of a poem by Ben Blench, entitled "Career opportunity my arse" Your jobs are gone but it’s OK you can retrain says the Chancellor What he means is banking is more important than music I retrain as a blackbird Eat worms, sing I am weightless Like the markets I try again, reimagine myself As a chevron, pointing To an expressionless sky I retrain as an astronaut I retrain as dat boi I become a guillotine I become a dead meme I become a stick figure without hands I get so good at it — retraining — I feel called to share my gift For a fee of course, I’m not a fucking charity. Now I help others find their way I tell them: your job now is to turf these pricks out of their ministries And when they whine We can all sit in our bedrooms Smashing the F button On our battered keyboards The channels hum with Our collective crowing: Your jobs are gone, now you Rethink! Reskill! Reboot!
May 28, 2025 at 10:51 AM
benblench.bsky.social
I wrote a poem about this a few years ago!
Text of a poem by Ben Blench, entitled "Career opportunity my arse" Your jobs are gone but it’s OK you can retrain says the Chancellor What he means is banking is more important than music I retrain as a blackbird Eat worms, sing I am weightless Like the markets I try again, reimagine myself As a chevron, pointing To an expressionless sky I retrain as an astronaut I retrain as dat boi I become a guillotine I become a dead meme I become a stick figure without hands I get so good at it — retraining — I feel called to share my gift For a fee of course, I’m not a fucking charity. Now I help others find their way I tell them: your job now is to turf these pricks out of their ministries And when they whine We can all sit in our bedrooms Smashing the F button On our battered keyboards The channels hum with Our collective crowing: Your jobs are gone, now you Rethink! Reskill! Reboot!
May 28, 2025 at 10:48 AM
benblench.bsky.social
And then I think to myself "so what?" — killer art stuff from Joe Brainard
Text of a poem by Joe Brainard, entitled "Art" Looking through a book of drawings by Holbein I realize several moments of truth. A nose (a line) so nose-like. So line-like. And then I think to myself "so what?" It's not going to solve any of my problems. And then I realize that at the moment of appreciation I had no problems. Then I decide that this is a pretty profound thought. And that I ought to write it down. This is what I have just done. But it doesn't seem so profound anymore. That's art for you.
April 22, 2025 at 9:08 AM
benblench.bsky.social
This is what happens when I'm trying to work but the snooker's on
Text of a poem by Ben Blench, entitled "Transcript of a YouTube video about hotel art" I'm staring at the wall and I’m thinking about painting a Japanese street scene rainy night in Chiba all neon all reflections all the light and I'm adding in the deferential gaze of a hot kawaii girl sort of overseeing sort of looking like she’s feeling kinda tired of being human and I’m getting the impression that I’m not really present in the room walk around lie down on the floor in the air conditioning with the light coming in and it’s beckoning the city that I’m thinking about painting out of me and I'm staring at the wall.
April 21, 2025 at 9:22 AM
benblench.bsky.social
"If I'm up, everyone else should be up too. Also I should be able to play golf more."

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dayligh...
Screenshot of a Wikipedia page with the following section highlighted: Many publications credit the DST proposal to prominent English builder and outdoorsman William Willett, who independently conceived DST in 1907 during a pre-breakfast ride when he observed how many Londoners slept through a large part of a summer day. Willett also was an avid golfer who disliked cutting short his round at dusk.
March 30, 2025 at 8:00 AM
benblench.bsky.social
"She knows he means well, but, eventually, he'll leave" Ryan Teitman being all nebulous and stuff
Text of a poem by Ryan Teitman, entitled "A Cloud and a Ghost Walk into a Bar" The cloud orders nothing; the ghost orders nothing. The bar has been empty for years. The cloud begins talking about time: how it's a social construction, how it's malleable in relativistic physics, how waking up one minute before your alarm goes off is a sign of good sleep hygiene. The ghost nods and smiles, even though there's no way for the cloud to see she's there. She thought they would have so much in common: an incorporeal ontology, expertise in both floating and hovering, an appreciation for the films of Jean Renoir. But she knows he can't get over the fact she used to be human. If you go back far enough, that dirt used to be human, he says, gesturing out the door toward the bare patches in the highway median. You're just you. She knows he means well, but, eventually, he'll leave: become rain, fall to the ground, and vanish into the water table. So, that night, she leaves instead. As they float over an abandoned rail yard, she unwinds her fingers from his and flies west, for dozens of miles, before stopping under a clear, dark sky. The starlight moves in and out of her like a needle through fabric. She doesn't feel a thing.
March 28, 2025 at 3:35 PM
benblench.bsky.social
Warm, in love, letting go of nothing
Text of a poem by Ben Blench, entitled "Best before" The boys have all unbuttoned their shirts, but the busy people Are still bashing away at the world on their escalators and trams. Not us. You rub your cheek on my shoulder and I drop my arm Around your waist, loose and lazy in the heat of the day. My left hand is fiddling with an empty scrap of cellophane Holding it up to the sun and idly turning it over in my fingers And it's nothing, really nothing. But look — look at how the light Glances right through it, and glitters in its creases. It's pretty enough To make me forget everything, and just as I do, you Hold out your hand, and I surrender it without a word. I have never felt so happy.
March 23, 2025 at 9:40 AM
benblench.bsky.social
"I tell you I could speak again" Louise Glück OMFG
Text of a poem by Louise Glück, entitled "The Wild Iris" At the end of my suffering there was a door. Hear me out: that which you call death I remember. Overhead, noises, branches of the pine shifting. Then nothing. The weak sun flickered over the dry surface. It is terrible to survive as consciousness buried in the dark earth. Then it was over: that which you fear, being a soul and unable to speak, ending abruptly, the stiff earth bending a little. And what I took to be birds darting in low shrubs. You who do not remember passage from the other world I tell you I could speak again: whatever returns from oblivion returns to find a voice: from the center of my life came a great fountain, deep blue shadows on azure seawater.
March 20, 2025 at 12:51 PM
benblench.bsky.social
"...the earth a little darker than the sky at the horizon," a comforting death poem by Carl Adamschick. Posting in memory of my bike guy, Jeroen Kreeft. Rust zacht Jeroen 😭
Text of a poem by Carl Adamshick, entitled "Before" I always thought death would be like traveling in a car, moving through the desert, the earth a little darker than sky at the horizon, that your life would settle like the end of a day and you would think of everyone you ever met, that you would be the invisible passenger, quiet in the car, moving through the night, forever, with the beautiful thought of home.
March 15, 2025 at 12:40 PM