Selected by Mei-mei Berssenbrugge as a finalist for Omnidawn’s 2019 Open Poetry Book Prize
Slowly my black mood came crawling
Politics is what someone does little baby ” but talking to them I was like
Maybe these are disaster pieces since the surpassing disaster is here and ongoing…
I just couldn’t read anything else about quiet observation in domestic space
Let shame cling to me in dim white rooms ( tho A says rightly that some ppl could use some
How evil I’d felt I’d been with my lean death tease in that concrete depression loft
With every evidence of living available on the floor
( Adlib like grease ! grease ! fitting for how nasty the social weather , real disaster weather
And I saw myself in bed , a hot dead object listening to ” pissy pamper
With the dust in the air just sparkling glistening…
What else can this work be besides notes on programmed item shimmer ?
Like ex: the clouds were heavy still and sad //
all stupid expected aggression
The ABC-7 helicopter chewed the afternoon’s illusion of privacy up and still I had to
soup dumplings ? fix my acid reflux ? meet catherine
for a drink ? tell catherine goodbye?
tell the world goodbye ? or earn today’s money and act ?
so I go crazy for a moment of recognition
My life cracks slowly , subcritically ,
like a flag , like a back
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Benjamin Krusling reading: Slowly my black mood came crawling
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Benjamin Krusling (MFA, Iowa Writers Workshop) is
an artist who works in language, sound, and moving
image. A book of poems, Glaring, is forthcoming in the
summer from Wendy’s Subway, and a text-image
project about terror and streaming called “I have too
much to hide” is forthcoming this year from Triple
Canopy.