Albert K. Ashes-Bury Powers Through

I know exactly what you’re thinking. I’m paranoid.
Is that the end? A full stop, semi
or a colon between those? Who decides? This is making no sense.

In the East I’d be a sage. At family barbecues I get stoned.
I don’t believe in these models—I smile and nod—
so when I go to the doctor I accept the script
but throw it away again later and write my own, yet that only contains

new models: I semi
smile and nod I could repeat
that family script—it’s senseless
I’m deciding and it doesn’t make sense

to our doctored models in the west so I go on stage
instead, looking like I’m making things up

with no sense, punctuating the silence
without knowing if anyone knows what I’m saying, this script

surely indicating I should not be here—I know what
you’re thinking: I’m paranoid—at the least

I was in a cage—they broke in my dreams repeating—and family
rendezvouses I didn’t believe in made me want to get stoned

I go to the doctor and get called paranoid as the models
in the West want all smiles and nods and me not making sense

of myself so I lost myself in models, writing
on my own because the story I was given seemed wrong—I look wrong

giving this story making you silent, making no
sense. repeating the same words as I’m unsure how to

punctuate it, how to stop it fully how to not be that
family story which cannot make sense, I’m making things

no sense, I don’t know exactly what I’m paranoid
I’m thinking that models, no sages, no stoners, no

new scripts out in the audience know what I’m saying, in your silence, too, don’t you, I knew what I was

thinking I’m a sage I made the family
paranoid so they tried to stone me but in the end

I’m making a new script I don’t care how it looks
I know what I’m saying I need a stage full stop

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