benjamin krusling

 


my grandma before she died said I’m your little Black granny
and cold people in the winter on her first trip to Chicago ,
stuck in customs in Russia ...


            I said GG what will I do
without you I have no context
I’m the subject with his head latticed
gripping my wrist in utter abjection
in bed this morning I think I’m completely social
the only thing I have is my life , from one angle
I’m a version of mother , grandmother
and it produces a diamond
desire lines of death , an anti chase bank eye view
my heart is wrapping around the hammer inside me
and her hands folded
and the rings on them and the cold
saying if you’re my friend , be my friend
don’t change on me , don’t switch ...
 
                        so is time once thought somnolent finally open I wondered ?
            are the church bells finally digital ?
            I can’t see them but I hear them
            it’s a sound that makes no statement

 


so much bad laughter today , like I imagine hyenas


all I perform is non-presence
the missiles that come along with that
but this “anxiety” is an inflation of a normal condition
there’s pressure to it , with this upward inflection , this kind of
slur , this marshy stitching , martial footing ...
I looked at the tunnel roof and wept , the fallen tree and never stopped weeping
in the writing where everything matters
we’re guided to the back of a car and driven to an urban forest
too tapped — but you’re so good I hope regardless
my heart is with you — I review its labor on a digital display
and you lie on the roof in the sun getting darker
thinking of me , or reading , whatever
I don’t love nobody or whatever elizabeth cotten said
just going down the road feeling full of young and bed and fervor
some armor scored and hanged on the hook of the hollow wall
so if I die today it will be just like this
red , resonant ,
stretched on the bed like the long string instrument
non-chaotic
non-rational
ceaseless as mechanical rain

 


as I approach the door with a welcoming action 



now ,
as I live my life in service of becoming so present :
r.i.p. pop smoke , grandma gloria , linda , literally memory
plastic ocean , self-medicate , clouds
break up , black horizon
as the block-end swarms with men fixing the roof of the key foods  …
we live obviously in a state , weeping
on mushrooms , contesting the subway
all open and running in the visual world
I’m walking , the police are inserting a person into a bag
and into a van , 16 or so of us watching  ...
sure , I’m almost 30 , shale-like , abundant
it’s actually not on the nose cuz I’m not thinking at all
I read this interview about the language of organ tuning and harmonic expressions
            that have been disappeared from the western music-historical memory
            there were different tunings for different villages , tunings for the church , the castle , different cultures of feeling …
            I have an abject fear of conscription and have embraced various raw fibers in my making
reality comes roaring off my body image in these great gray waves ,
            cool
I’ve ghosted jobs
I’m not self-satisfied or grateful for my minor good fortune ,
            everyone should have it
I’m trying to elaborate this idea of vulnerability in my relationships
            that deprioritizes the transcendence of fear and ugliness
            but I might be wrong about it , the voice being so naked
            in song and desire , I don’t have my priorities in order
            I feel I have a lot of fear and ugliness to transcend ...
I miss my friend , she’s gone away
even though she lives in flatbush …
someone utterly screams outside my window
today , I saw my body in the mirror and tears came
I was so grateful for life
my pupils were so wide
my heart was so full of worms
then it wasn’t
I’m sure it isn’t
a day of recording my saying hello to myself
self-medicate , drone , escutcheon of fortitude ...
I think what I want to say is not in the words area
it comes from earlier on
my fear of the body I didn’t know I had — I get older
I put something human on my face

 
 

you just missed me saying i love you


I understand “flaxen” now 
I think laurel halo , john lennon 
like that , back and forth , laurel halo
john lennon laurel halo , etc
a voice dense and consistent as cake ? 
pound cake yellow cake laurel halo
technocratic measure 
john lennon
distant family 

 

benjamin krusling is a poet and artist in Brooklyn.
Their first full-length collection, Glaring, is forthcoming
from Wendy's Subway, and recent work can be found
in Triple Canopy, The Volta, and What/Happens.