Ben Blench

@benblench.bsky.social

191 Followers 187 Following

Magical person. Actual published poet. Freelance copywriter.

Photo of a paperback with words and word fragments circled in pencil to create an erasure poem: All your importance - nothing Your eyes Your anxiety A sense of water Then breath You sink into shadow over and over We're far from the light.
Photo of a paperback with words and word fragments circled in pencil to create an erasure poem: The day flies The air low and big We talk about a great friend left waiting A soul forced into seclusion Looking through glass Losing heart.
Photo of a page of a book with selected words and word fragments circled in pencil to create an erasure poem: Everything is terrible We watch loops Allow ourselves our certainties A dour life The arrival of hell.
Photo of the stage in the main room of the Paradiso, Amsterdam l, set up for a performance by Sunn O))) Thirty amplifiers stacked and arranged like an amp-henge. Red stage lights.
Photo of snooker player Willie Thorne having his lunch with a budgie perched on his shoulder.
Photo of a page from the Autobiography of Alice B. Toklas by Gertrude Stein. The text reads: I can so well remember the first time Gertrude Stein took me to see Guillaume Apollinaire. It was a tiny bachelor’s apartment on the rue des Martyrs. The room was crowded with a great many small young gentlemen. Who, I asked Fernande, are all these little men. They are poets, answered Fernande. I was overcome. I had never seen poets before, one poet yes but not poets.
Photograph of an art book featuring a quote from Anselm Kiefer. The text reads “Art is longing. You never arrive, but you keep going in the hope that you will.”
Screenshot of a page on the Full House Literary website featuring a poem by Ben Blench, entitled "How to survive the apocalypse"
Photo of the first page of a book by Jeanette Winterson. The text reads: “You have navigated with raging soul far from the paternal home, passing beyond the seas' double rocks and now you inhabit a foreign land. Medea”
Cover of DEVASTATION SONGS, an Anthology of Kaiju Writing on Broken Sleep Books
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'
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
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."
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."
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.
Screenshot of Ben Blench’s Bluesky profile page showing 144 followers, 144 following, and 144 posts
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."
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.
A photo of a single swan chilling out the back of the RAI exhibition centre in Amsterdam
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."
Photo of Ben Blench sitting on a swan bench wearing a Powell Peralta Vato Rat baseball cap and a black shirt.
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.
Screenshot of four words from the iMDB synopsis of Jurassic World: Rebirth. The text reads: "Within them, a drug."
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.
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!
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!
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
Text of a poem by Hayden Carruth, entitled "NOT BY ANY MEANS HAVE I NOW FOR THE FIRST TIME" observed the green wave breaking and cresting. But this is a new year, a new place, and the tall lilacs at the back of the garage are leaping up and over the wall and toward my window, almost in full leaf. And all the yard is a crashing and falling of green with new menace.
Text of a poem by Ben Blench, entitled "The easiest thing in the whole blooming world" Rain in the movies is very Much not like real rain And have you noticed how the car Windscreens are always impossibly clean? Also, you know nobody's driving Not watching the road like that Light lands in look at me stripes On dreamy actors' eyes And every sound sounds too much, plus People don't actually talk that way Not really, that is to say, not us We make it all seem natural, true Certain as water, unhurried, unforced, The ocean, the river, the spring, the source.
Text of a poem by Leanne O’Sullivan, entitled "Note" If we become separated from each other this evening try to remember the last time you saw me, and go back and wait for me there. I promise I won’t be very long, though I am haunted by the feeling that I might keep missing you, with the noise of the city growing too loud and the day burning out so quickly. But let’s just say it’s as good a plan as any. Just once let’s imagine a word for the memory that lives beyond the body, that circles and sets all things alight. For I have singled you out from the whole world, and I would – even as this darkness is falling, even when the night comes where there are no more words, and the day comes when there is no more light.
Text of a poem by Ben Blench, entitled "If you want to make a man buy a thing" Tell him it’s a knife A tactical machine Computer-designed Robot-built To precise specifications Without compromise, or Tell him it was hand forged From ancient ore By a sweaty artisan Belly full of raw oats Anvil chest piece These are the guidelines Do not hint at pink-cheek schoolboy stuff Admit the possibility of a seized hinge A clumsy cut Meat sliced too thick, careless Ripped skin, tell-tale bloodstain on a bleached collar I think I got away with it Oh god I hope nobody saw If you want to make a man buy a thing Call it king muscle, turbo kill, ultrafuck Make him understand that without it He will lose it all Everything Call it whisky Call it a weapon Call it a wife.
Text of a poem by Fiona Benson, entitled "Almond Blossom" This morning, love, I'm tired and grave; I can barely hear the wintered bird's small song over the hum of the central heating. We must trust, I suppose, to the song's bare minim: that spring will be a green havoc as the trees burst their slums and the dirt breaks open to admit crocus-spear and cyclamen; and though we can't yet feel it earth's already begun her slow incline, inch by ruined inch, easing you back from the brink.
Text of a poem by Ben Blench, entitled: "Pitch for an action movie with no action" Pitch for an action movie with no action A loving daughter is not kidnapped Her father is not a retired spy Nor an ageing one-man army Not even a handy guy who, driven to extremes, Could really kick some ass In unusually graphic ways, no He’s a decent chap, a family man He’s even OK with his daughter having a boyfriend If you can believe that So when the non-existent kidnappers don’t call He has no need to growl threateningly about Tracking, extraction, vengeance, blood There are no boasts of a very particular set of skills No closet concealing a flight case Of carefully arranged knives, sidearms, grenades Because — surprise! — we won’t be seeing our hero Going impressively apeshit When pushed to the limit AND BEYOND It is unclear why this particular individual hasn’t been targeted By these phantom thugs, or why their being Albanian Has anything to do with anything — it doesn’t And as you might imagine, because there’s no action The main narrative thrust of the film Is largely carried by dialogue But the script is in fact pretty unspectacular Daughter: What are you going to do? Dad: What I do best. He boils pasta, melts butter Stirs in flour, milk, cheese They sit down to eat together, he looks at her, Asks how was your day? Listens to what she has to say.
Text of a poem by Dawn Watson, entitled "Bird on the School Path" There is this bird furiously hoking through the bushes, like What. The fuck. Is this leaf. Doing. In my — And this. And fucking this.
Text of a poem by Seamus Heaney, entitled "Postscript" And some time make the time to drive out west Into County Clare, along the Flaggy Shore, In September or October, when the wind And the light are working off each other So that the ocean on one side is wild With foam and glitter, and inland among stones The surface of a slate-grey lake is lit By the earthed lightning of a flock of swans, Their feathers roughed and ruffling, white on white, Their fully grown headstrong-looking heads Tucked or cresting or busy underwater. Useless to think you'll park and capture it More thoroughly. You are neither here nor there, A hurry through which known and strange things pass As big soft buffetings come at the car sideways And catch the heart off guard and blow it open.
Text of a poem by Maggie Smith, entitled “Good Bones” Life is short, though I keep this from my children. Life is short, and I’ve shortened mine in a thousand delicious, ill-advised ways, a thousand deliciously ill-advised ways I’ll keep from my children. The world is at least fifty percent terrible, and that’s a conservative estimate, though I keep this from my children. For every bird there is a stone thrown at a bird. For every loved child, a child broken, bagged, sunk in a lake. Life is short and the world is at least half terrible, and for every kind stranger, there is one who would break you, though I keep this from my children. I am trying to sell them the world. Any decent realtor, walking you through a real shithole, chirps on about good bones: This place could be beautiful, right? You could make this place beautiful.
Text of a poem by Ada Limón, entitled "What I Didn't Know Before" was how horses simply give birth to other horses. Not a baby by any means, not a creature of liminal spaces, but a four-legged beast hellbent on walking, scrambling after the mother. A horse gives way to another horse and then suddenly there are two horses, just like that. That's how I loved you. You, off the long train from Red Bank carrying a coffee as big as your arm, a bag with two computers swinging in it unwieldily at your side. I remember we broke into laughter when we saw each other. What was between us wasn't a fragile thing to be coddled, cooed over. It came out fully formed, ready to run.
Text of a poem by Ben Blench entitled "Anthem for a resurrected planet" Our pockets are stuffed with cash And we’re wandering along a beach At the end of the day, a wonderful day No sickness, no sweat, You and me on the up Striking out into life like the first day, And you say kiss me, you hideous brute. Through clean air we can see for miles And it is a picture of togetherness The landscape triumphant, unmolested Filled with contented mothers Babies cradled in their arms Everything well-built And I just know that this time it’s going to last Every nation’s flag is flying with a supreme lack of arrogance That drowns out the advertisers’ claims The sun swells with slow pride As if all the systems that conspired to bind us Have seized up and dissolved, as if We have turned off the TV and thrown open the curtains And for the first time in years we don’t feel like getting drunk Finally, an upstanding woman is in charge of things And there is change on the wind Safe streets and clean rivers, everywhere bursting with life And we’re all on our bikes, riding Towards some beautiful unbordered country.
Text of a poem by Ben Blench identifying the works it is sourced from, including poems by Nâzim Hikmet Ran, Antarah ibn Shaddād, Nizar Qabbani, Sorhab Sepehri, Saeed Soltanpour, Mosad Abu Toha, Pir Sultan Abdal, Kahlil Gibran, and Linda Nabizade.
Text of poem by Ben Blench, entitled "Well then, you had better learn how" In my mother’s knife shop An unsewn rip And every particle Of joy asleep Blood flowers In silent waves Separated streams Deer in the mountains Living arrows flung To the farthest point Where no stars revolve And no land can warm me A one-armed man A single flint A sealed bud A bridled beast.
Text of a poem by Ben Blench, entitled "Instead of a glass, a man" Instead of a glass, a man Instead of cold milk, a worn tyre Blue overalls, sharp intake of breath I can’t let you take her away again In that condition, mate Instead of love, a wrench.
A poem by Ben Blench, entitled "Curses!" I get bored of the corporate charade, And start casting tiny spells around the office. So when I steal cutlery from the canteen And slowly push the forks Into the welcoming loam Beneath the yuccas at front desk, I am also gently fucking the CEO's girlfriend. A betrayal that kills him on the spot, Much to his wife's relief. And when I balance a glass, Fringed with flat white froth On top of the soundproof booth Beside my boss's room, A nasty rumour of insider trading Sends the stock price tumbling And the VC guys fall over themselves, Trying to claw back their shitty money. Then there's the constant stream Of handwritten curses that I stick to the furniture: May your competitors make an astonishingly good TV ad. May you lose 50% of your customers overnight. And then, may your competitors follow that up With a really terrific online campaign That sways the other 50% as well, And also wins tons of industry awards. Eventually I tire of the subterfuge Open my calendar and send a meeting request: Purpose: Get undressed and make me yelp Time: Right. Fucking. Now. Cc: Everyone Standing on my desk and unbuttoning my shirt. Every head in the place turns to look. One by one they step around their desks OK, I think as they walk towards me, This is more fucking like it.
A poem by Ben Blench, entitled: "A song about an orange blanket" The Sweet Release of Death are on stage playing smashed up guitar noise to a crowd of expat coders and Dutch punks who are all going nuts and I’m nodding my head which is more or less the same thing for me and hoping I still have some chocolate at home. All I can think about is sweetness, like waking from a dream and trying to hang on to the details but they’re melting and the more I try to chase them down the quicker they dissolve and in the end the feeling is what’s important and that stays with me all day. This next one is about an orange blanket yells the singer and fuck I wish I could write a song half this good like I wish you would come bouncing across the room to steal my drink leaning in close so I smell your garlic sweat and I’m sitting at the bar, waiting.
Text of a poem by Ben Blench, entitled "Jumping hot" It’s the hottest day of the year Of your life In the history of the world And you and your friends Are screaming at each other And jumping into the canal None of you cares about looking good None of you worries about getting hurt None of you thinks about your mother Or hears her fretting, BE CAREFUL! You just keep launching your bodies Off the bridge and into the green Where the heat can’t touch you Where you forget your dreams of violence Where death chants jump, jump, jump again.
Text of a poem by Ben Blench, entitled "After work we went to the bar" That night we could not see the moon for all the music remember? But we felt its tidal pull fingers on skin speechless flickering Drawing me into you so right I could not help myself All of it slipping away and up narrowing red my final breath.
Text of a poem by Ben Blench, entitled "Songbook" Prompt system Folding in Towards a shoreline Shops near you We have no problems like this None at all but still I’m thinking a lot about halving Myself, a crisp crease A hinge plus two extra sides If I can fold I can open I can sight-read faced pages Join my voice with others’ voices The way butter combines with sugar Egg soaks into breadcrumbs Afternoons slide into dusk And me on my sofa Not reaching for the light Not yet.
Text of a poem by Ben Blench, entitled: "Best lives" Every hour we break Step away from our screens Drink water Stretch And search the vast shared emptiness Beyond the smoked glass For signs of the souls we left outside Weightless, they hop off the planet's surface And rise Flickering Like birds Folding their voices in quiet chorus As we bow our heads Over keyboards, invisible problems The days drip away like this Drenched in meetings and emails Deadlines Deliverables Meanwhile, their crystal happiness Commingled laughter Ascends gently to the heavens A soft spiral My purple heart.
Text of a poem by Ben Blench entitled: "Bedtime stories" Every night you tell your kids stories about trolls who hide in the woods ambushing little dudes and pulling them to pieces, cracking their bones and sucking out all the juice. You tell them about the witch who suddenly appears in your house and reduces parents to dust just like that — poof! and nobody ever sees you again. In their wide listening eyes you read their delight and how they love it the remorseless awfulness pain death violence more they giggle tell us another one. Later you catch the end of a soppy film about friendship or a gentle dad and you shatter like spun sugar hiding in the very darkness you want so much to protect them from.
A poem by Ben Blench entitled: "Enjoy our unique office culture" In a misguided attempt to cut costs and boost employee morale Someone at HQ has decided to integrate the IT department with the kitchens. So when I rock up at nine o'clock on Monday There's a fresh cakeputer cooling on my desk. Kit (with the snazzy specs) gives me the big eyes like God this is weird — isn't this weird? I hold her gaze, shrug, and pop the ESC key into my mouth. The work, to be honest, isn't that interesting, But I do my best to clear as much as I can, frosting fizzing in my blood, Before I inevitably lose control and bite off the corner of my screen. Come eleven, most of us are stuffing our faces. By clocking-off time I’m itching with idle guilt. And so the days go — delicious, but not exactly productive. I get fat, but I can't help myself, this empty feasting. Licking chocolate off my fingers, insatiable, powerless I brush electric sprinkles onto the carpet and I know — I KNOW — this isn't right The more I eat, the less I do but I'll be back for more tomorrow, and the day after that I've never worked anywhere quite like this.
Text of a poem by Ben Blench, entitled: "You’ve never been so angry, except you’re always this angry" The way you’re always lost inside stories You never quite get round to reading There’s always something pressing to do Lick up dust, endure a swarm of tiny flies Preserve summer peppers in salt water Hold your breath near a faint flame Wait for your life — your real life — to begin Some itches only the skin can scratch But first you have to learn to say less First you have to learn to say nothing at all.
A poem by Ben Blench entitled "Look, I’m sorry I shouted at your robot" It’s not your fault, I just, I get angry — I care — because Influencers have ruined everything and You are dancing in the corner Of a supermarket car park While your best friend films it Is this the best you can do? Yelling at other streamers? Accusing grandmasters of cheating? While a man whose job is apparently Selling a negotiation skills course Tells you that everything in life is a negotiation I’m pretty sure he means it literally Like he imagines an airborne mist Attempting to strike a deal with light About the precise placement of a rainbow But what I want to know is why The fuck we’re taking any of this shit Seriously — it’s idiotic! I strongly recommend you stop Paying attention, get a fucking grip! Oh no, I’m doing it again, please Take your earbuds out so I Can apologise properly, wait Where are you going?
Text of a poem by Ben Blench, entitled "Wasting time on the internet again" You are an 80s TV kids show presenter and your name is the colour of your hair plus the last thing you put in your mouth You are a skateboarder turned actor and your sponsor is the speciality booze you had a skinful of that time you got arrested in Naples, a close shave that one You are a porter hauling a suitcase full of limbs upstairs and the limbs are heavy but it's your job to carry them so you clench your jaw and keep going You are one of many heavy little limbs inside a suitcase being borne towards the shores of secret sea You are the last wave ever to break on the dead beach that smells of static You are denatured protein, black paste, a clump You are going to find something better to do with your time in this world Tomorrow you are.