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Ben Blench

@benblench.bsky.social

Happy birthday to me! I just heard I got a poem accepted by a cute poetry site. Gonna be published next year :)

No it's not the one about frangipane (bsky.app/profile/benb...)

Ben Blench @benblench.bsky.social · Jun 7

New Saturday afternoon murder poem by me:

Behold my fucking frangipane
I got the recipe from my friend Diane
Gonna bake it in my Bakewell tart
And feed it to Donald, he’s got heart
DISEASE

November 21, 2025 at 2:57 PM

Ben Blench

@benblench.bsky.social

Now playing: The Velvet Underground - Beginning To See The Light

open.spotify.com/track/7nDdOt...

Beginning To See The Light

open.spotify.com

November 14, 2025 at 10:15 PM

Reposted by Ben Blench

So Mayer

@suchmayer.bsky.social

I do this all the time, no AI or even computer needed. It's called mind-mapping, or marginal comments, or Talmud, or Tumblr, or Post-its, or scholia, or Emily Dickinson's writing practice, or drafts, or revises, or amends, or "expand this," or highlighting, or developing an idea, or ...

Rohan Maitzen @rohanmaitzen.bsky.social · 20d

What.

Promotion for an add-on feature that lets you “chat with your notes”

November 4, 2025 at 6:47 PM

Reposted by Ben Blench

Rose Ruane

@regretteruane.bsky.social

Philip Larkin’s this be the verse mangled into Ozymandias, the text reads

They Oz you up, your mandyias.
They may not mean to, but they do.
They give you vast and trunkless legs
A sunken shattered visage too.
But they were Ozzed up in their turn
By Mandyias upon the sand
Who half the time had wrinkled lips And half in sneering cold command.
Oz hands on mandyias to man.
Like mighty works atop a shelf Look on them early as you can
Ye mighty and despair yourself

October 30, 2025 at 3:49 PM

Ben Blench

@benblench.bsky.social

All-time banger, this one

The Moth Magazine @themothmagazine.bsky.social · Oct 19

❛ What. / The fuck. / Is this leaf. / Doing. In my–– / And this. / And fucking this.

A poem for your Sunday reset – by Dawn Watson, from Issue 25. 🍂

October 19, 2025 at 8:45 PM

Reposted by Ben Blench

Ursula K. Le Guin Bot

@leguinbot.bsky.social

We live in capitalism. Its power seems inescapable. So did the divine right of kings. Any human power can be resisted and changed by human beings. Resistance and change often begin in art, and very often in our art, the art of words.

October 18, 2025 at 7:45 AM

Ben Blench

@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

Ben Blench

@benblench.bsky.social

Now playing: Alienbaby Collective - Waves II
open.spotify.com/track/26IQM9...

Waves II

open.spotify.com

October 12, 2025 at 3:26 PM

Reposted by Ben Blench

Rough Diamond Poetry

@rough-diamond1.bsky.social

And YES! Another submission opportunity!
We've opened up for our new anthology - Poetry for Protest.
Check out the website for submission details...
roughdiamondpoetry.com/submissions/

Submissions

We are open for submissions for Poems for Protest and The Rough Diamond Poetry Prize We are open for poetry submissions for our next poetry anthology “Poems for Protest” Send us 1-5 poe…

roughdiamondpoetry.com

October 5, 2025 at 3:23 PM

Reposted by Ben Blench

Rough Diamond Poetry

@rough-diamond1.bsky.social

We have opened for our very first poetry prize!
Check out our website for full submission details
roughdiamondpoetry.com/the-rough-di...

October 5, 2025 at 3:20 PM

Ben Blench

@benblench.bsky.social

Now playing: Can x MF DOOM

Incredible track from the Tom Caruana Inner Space remix album.

tomcaruanamashups.bandcamp.com/track/mf-doo...

MF DOOM, by Tom Caruana

from the album Inner Space

tomcaruanamashups.bandcamp.com

October 3, 2025 at 5:42 PM

Ben Blench

@benblench.bsky.social

On #NationalPoetryDay I’m super happy to share that my poem “Wasting time on the internet again” has been included in the latest anthology from @rough-diamond1.bsky.social :)

Wanna read the poem? Go buy the book! It's called “100 poems for the 21st century”. and you can get it on Amazon.

100 Poems for the 21st Century

Buy 100 Poems for the 21st Century by Cosgrove, Miss Charlotte (ISBN: 9798267508162) from Amazon's Book Store. Everyday low prices and free delivery on eligible orders.

www.amazon.co.uk

October 2, 2025 at 8:53 AM

Reposted by Ben Blench

Rough Diamond Poetry

@rough-diamond1.bsky.social

EXCITING NEWS!
Our newest print anthology - 100 poems for the 21st Century - will be available from Amazon within the next 72 hours!

Thank you so much to our amazing poets who have really brought this book to life😍💎😍

September 28, 2025 at 3:09 PM

Reposted by Ben Blench

Sarah Lyons

@citymystic.bsky.social

open.substack.com/pub/houseofm...

Wrote about the radical act of returning to one's body in a digital age designed to detach us from them.

You Don't Need to Log off, You Need to Become Sensual

The digital world the wealthy are creating is designed to detach us from our bodies

open.substack.com

September 22, 2025 at 2:37 PM

Reposted by Ben Blench

𝕄𝕒𝕣𝕜 𝔸𝕟𝕥𝕠𝕟𝕪 𝕆𝕨𝕖𝕟

@markantonyowen.com

Don't miss this, poets – the new wave, AND your chance to appear in a future one. I have two years' worth of spaces to fill. Help a publisher out? 🥹😉

𝒊𝒂𝒎𝒃 ~ 𝒑𝒐𝒆𝒕𝒓𝒚 𝒔𝒆𝒆𝒏 𝒂𝒏𝒅 𝒉𝒆𝒂𝒓𝒅 @iambapoet.com · Sep 13

Fewer than two days now till wave twenty-three of @iambapoet.com arrives on screens large and small.

There's also only a week left until YOU can audition for your place in the journal in either 2026 or 2027.

Find out what you need to do, and be ready to submit next week. 🤞🏻

iambapoet.com/audition