Albert K. Ashes-Bury’s Ode to Love, You, This

“Maybe I’m a lonely man in the middle of something
That he doesn’t really understand”
—Paul McCartney, ‘Maybe I’m Amazed’

“It even seems as if the love-episode had served as a mere release, or had been unconsciously arranged for a definite purpose, and as if the personal experience were only a prelude to the all-important ‘divine comedy.’”
—Carl Jung, ‘Psychology and Literature’

“Ain’t no bitch like my bitch ’cause that bitch been my pen”
—Kendrick Lamar & SZA, ‘gloria’

My hands are up and out and irresponsible!
They had me writing this before phonics—
they had me making sense of you
before poetry, all else
being secondary there’s no doubt.
But what do I know

really? I was the last to be shown
what any of this was for. I just followed
my pen, even when I did not want to—
and I still do, even while
I am terrified and at the mercy
of what wants to talk itself out of me.

Honestly, I was only
three (or unborn?) when I was being positioned for this poem (and
for us? I’m positive) and I am only
meeting with it now—which
has hurt (as I was the last to know
and accept it: my hands are up).

And honestly honestly honestly, I knew
nothing of the use of epizeuxis
before you (or of love—
or of you you you) but it feels so
so so good and I was being given something
all the time, wasn’t I, just following

my pen in the dark, and out you came
just as you always would have.
(And did you know all this
where you were, even all those miles away?)
O and now I cannot even hold it in!
As I must just say

how utterly magical it still is for me
to merely be a witness to this thing I am—that we are—
that is done to me and us

and this and how utterly
utterly utterly in love with us—and this!—
I still am (and even

even even now
I am—still and completely—
just watching the magic and love come out

like an excited child. Like I’m three!
I had no idea
what this all was until now, but it was in me

when I was three, I think.
And you’ve always been here too
haven’t you—this

has always been here.
And I am not responsible for it,
only totally in awe of it all).

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