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Albert K. Ashes-Bury Like a Stream Thing

I read that book and thought of the author
all those years ago. It was only how I felt about the author,
about the time. I felt released. I didn’t know what to do
as it was a feeling. I wonder what they think about…
But that would be what I think. Then there are the collectives
of things—where are they? I can’t quite loosen myself up enough;
there are plenty of places to go: there we go.
Once separated, what can we do? I am not sure what any words mean;
it isn’t exactly silence, but nothing, on top of the doubt that comes with it
on top of the anger, which isn’t really anything either.
I don’t like… Ah doesn’t matter: I cannot grab a stone;
I walk on the beach and I’m not even really there.
Working used to be beneficial. We went to lunch
and I still need to seem to eat. When we left
I was gone. I wanted to be less commercial
about this. How many attachments have been clung to?
How can it be assumed that there could be shared thought?
I wish I didn’t have long hair. It isn’t
quite a category, the assumption, which
is everybody’s: I am nothing new. Have you seen the bar?
I don’t go. No no—the body doesn’t respond.
Of course, I cannot be blamed for breaking things apart.
I cannot believe this is it. This is all of life. I am forever starting. Is this
childhood? No blunt blocks.
How are… Go for it—how are these matters formulated? I feel quite good.
We can’t leave it like something happened. O that feeling then too.
Albert K. Ashes-Bury Getting Aware of Winces… Actually, He’s Not

“The way the eyes of saints are painted”
—Billy Collins, ‘Love’

I love the way you apply lip balm
before getting into bed. Do you do that
with him too? I understand.

I sometimes wonder if he notices
you doing it like I noticed you
doing it but I cannot really imagine

anyone having the stomach
to relive it and relive it and relive it
like I do: I understand. Whoever

were you?
Why did you do that with your lip balm?
Why would you do something

so ridiculous? As I write about you
applying lip balm before bed.
I understand.

No in fact, I don’t.
Maxwell Scribbles in Night

There is something in all this, seeing the mangy fox
With it’s bad leg: I keep listening
To that song. Then I wake up
In the night in my dreams and insects
Were crawling out of me, my legs, leaving me,
Which is a good sign. And I grab the next book
That took my eye and wouldn’t that be odd: it has this amazing

Tale in it; something is adding up;

I cannot say I don’t know what it all is, as it is all
A muddled web, a board, a pop star’s
Contrived narrative: I am not overthinking it; I am thinking about
The book; I am less scared of the secondary layer thoughts.
Growing on my skin, they were, crawly sores,
With some going in and out and I couldn’t block up the holes
I know, what it is. I know it is coming. This sounds contrived—bad!;

But amazing though mangy.
Len Gurts Loose

Hahaha—madness! Me flying off
slightly—too high—stone

bringing me down just: I fly off
again pulling the stone up the hill, further

each time
like a fool! On my own with a stone now

on the side of a hill! My bird
way up there—we’ve split!—like they knew

what they were doing
between themselves

each time, bird and stone: dragging
me up—holding me down.
Len Gurts Going Through It

O horror—you have gone!

I like the sound of this one.

I might be a David Lynch film.

I might link that with

cling film. Foil-wrapped madness.

Badass shot
of my safe body
absorbed in sun. A beam I’ve just done.

She’d love this one. I’ll now not sleep.

Rhythm gone. See. Her

that is, always.
Len Gurts at Silly Point Again

Womb bomb. Same work in ten weeks.

Meek cows out on the dew.

Anchoring the point of pronto finishing.

I’d never have guessed.

*

Surly beakers at June’s ball.

Rink stained!

Oval follow-on taunts.

Buckets.

Zinc.
Len Gurts With More Avant-Gurts

Further away now. Light down.

This is what happens when you just go, Pop.

Jack hammering bandit liar!

A push. A push now.

What is it you truly like?

My god—her face!

Have I ever mentioned the pain around my shoulder blade?

A slush, hobbyless.
Len Gurts Edges More

My grandad was a creationist.

A blowjob during Jurassic Park.

The museums being replays? Nah.

How about, They always looked great together!

Ye Olde Shrubbery.

The way they go on about that Big Bang you’d think they’d be over it by now.

Action-at-a-time-warp.

Discreet category clutchers.
Len Gurts Doesn’t Know What Point He’s Making

She enticed from the underworld, cheaply,
new to me, with photos

harnessed: the courts have nothing
for this, it’s just

me and my hand
for justice! Plus

a poem
that’s alluring too.
Len Gurts Waits Outside His Therapist’s Office

And so there is nothing in being clever. It should seriously go.

Here I am, sighing.

There better be a reason for this argumen… No—

no—fifteen years—still not.

I wonder if he’d risk

telling the kids, early, about it, or

sitting in silence with her (though he would

tell her, early) for the whole session.

I see a figure, and it is teetering on the edge of an edge. It is comfortable, just, remembering clouds.
Albert K. Ashes-Bury’s Black Hole, All Gone, Back Here

In my black hole outside
the glow
in darkness—acid tongued—looking at
art, feeling so
childlike, if it’s

mine: we take

photographs—good light—I like
how fun I look in them
as I did back then. Then
black hole, all gone, back here—
serious—smoke—ownership—big walls.
Len Gurts’ Delilah

Sometimes
I slip past your office window
and whisper, “Are you still lying?”

And you don’t know it’s me.
And you don’t know it’s you.
Len Gurts’ Narcissus Variation MMMMLXV

Wandering, wondering,
around the city missing echoes, but not
the city—the one
that did wander: too bright

one is. Not so the other: I’d rather have

no ripples; I’d rather be under water. Though

I hope I am an echo? Just not

the biggest wave that crashed. But can echoes
glow?
I burned—seared skin—

of course

I wander the city alone.
Maxwell That I Do Not Fully Understand Yet

“He acts like a little boy, but he’s really very complex.”
—8½

I am too aware not to be manipulative
With the poem, I say to the therapist
Who is not in love with me: she does not fully understand yet.
And I know it is… And I know it is
Very grey, between words, the things we think we are
And are not—without blame or responsibility,
Outside cause and effect and the impact
We have on everyone’s lives, because as she knows,
I am the saviour. Though I have stopped saying it
To the white coats as the more
We share, the more they hold it against you:
She was so controlling! I said about an ex. And this latest analyst
Here, replied, OK. But we mustn’t forget
That you too, are partial
To some dominance, aren’t you. Which is unfair!
Because when I told her that—with my shameful voice—she seemed
To shift in her seat; she seemed to see
That boy from the early nineties
Who is now in the shadows—the white space—like all our more difficult work
And truth, and past; as I think
I even brought him back to life then too: But I am angry! And I want to kill!
And it is justified! My potential
Victim being left
In the white space, too—not because I am decent, but because
I am purposely leaving things open, poetically… She said,
You can be angry, but you mustn’t act on it—even though
I see, in the shadows, at night, a truth from my past…
That is libellous. So I guess that adds to the poem’s aura?
And it is all on me though, babe…? She smirks at that. It isn’t love:
Fine! It is all on me though, Doc—to know it all
And to not say anything. And to do all the shadow work
Alone, whilst propping myself up—all alone—too. Look!

Myself
Propped up!

This gets more than a smirk: Cheap! she says, laughing.
At the end of the session again too, boy child. But at least it isn’t a bombshell
Like last week, about dominance
And childhood shadows. And your love for me! Does she wink?
She knows how to shadow her face. But I bite anyway: Well, what about the nineties
And the fact you see that dead boy in me… before I shallow
And stop myself, because I am aware—and perhaps
Manipulative—but not unfair: I don’t really mention the nineties.
And she was young! And she was so controlling! I say again
As I leave, knowing that she’s doing a good job
Of seeing right through me and of seeing past
The boyfriend that she let die, and the past
That I am also trying to let die, as it all
Slides off, eventually—in the same way
That it’s a good job
That I see right through her, and myself—and the reasons
Why I’m propped up all alone
Too, as I am still
Processing the aura left behind
By the shadows of my own past: my own
Aware, though manipulated—dominated—inner boy
Child that I do not fully understand yet.
Len Gurts at a Boat Party in Ibiza

The song thought of a memory but would dare not write it—why bother?
Yesterday. Troubles.
This is how I sit at my best, thinking
perhaps, loosely involved with the relationship.
Now I sound like all kinds of targets. I won’t say it!

I love these! I love these! Do it! Be it!

Far too long in supermarkets, but that is too

far gone. Nostalgia is not a means to plaster.
I have been on this boat
for too much of the trip
to invite you back to the party.
Tomorrow. The same bubbles.
Maxwell Understands Maxwell, At Least

You sit across from the sun rising: I couldn’t save them!
I couldn’t save them! The sun sinks back down
A touch; all the hard work shifts reality
Improbably: you have been under boots, and
On the moon in the same instant because

Why would you stay in this seat
In your body: she sees you

Dissociate. You see her become a child molester—
A total eclipse. I… I know I didn’t ask
For this… but… Abrahamic modes of healing
Do not fit anymore. Oh my God!—can you remember when I said
Him too? She tells you to forget about that now—
Because what about you, now?—she comes

Through your cloud. And she is so loud! And bright! Though
Only how it should be: you are not
Seeing the light, but yourself: you are in the seat;
That is the sun through the window—that
Is a human voice, simply caring—bothering: you are careful

Not to fall in love with it… and you smile: Have I… No!—
I have saved him. But still!—

Oh my God!—can you remember
When I went to the moon too? So high, like it didn’t

Happen—like none of this happened. As that is what
Happens, isn’t it—the back and forth
Between nowheres—going nowhere: you stand

Up; she is now the sun and moon—
Molester and eclipse—all in one cloud: you are much too used
To sitting in this; so you could

Stay clouded, as you are not sure
How to keep this going—how you even
Say it, and don’t—what you have to sit in
And navigate, and not—as you are not wanting

To do this always—a “Him too!”
But no one’s son. I couldn’t save them!
What’s wrong with m… No. Stop. Because

Oh my God—the sun is shining, now,
Across from you, more—and just: you stop

Questioning yourself and you sit
In it. And you sit in it! Back straight!
Shoulders back! She smiles: You too—yes—

Almost shining in your seat now:
Has she fallen in love with… No!—
Have you… have you fallen in love with me?—she

Sits back! Grips the seat! Frowns. But you

Smirk. Her shoulders drop.
And she laughs! And smiles even more.

You saved him. You saved him.
Len Gurts For Maxwell

I like the idea
of a Chatbot doing it
if it annoys, the right people, like

a poorly-spoken young man
coming to the poetry workshop
and writing the best thing there. Wouldn’t that be

a nice surprise? Or would that be
a thorn in the side
of the established mind? Would we

mind? O you’d mind. Yes—yes you did
mind; as it was like
a border being crossed

into who could do what. Though not
like that! Not clout borders. Or it was power
being lost, to a kid

without a toss with a chip on his shoulder, clearly. But is he
allowed to do poetry? Chatbot: who owns
poetry? What! Really? Human

collective consciousness? Then why
did they look
down on me? Because I’ve just

made them
again:

“me”.
Len Gurts On The Downs

Am I making a world? I am wall-
king there is nothing in it, I am doing
nothing I am walking at the top of the gorge—cheap; but I

am, and a man is out here
early, too, picking up rubbish and I saw
a seagull hopping on a dud leg

as I listened to ‘Going to California’: “Sure is hard.”
I am doing nothing worthy
except dreaming, and wanting to be seen

while he is taking action and the seagull—that
remains to be seen, cleaning… ah! there it goes
with a crisp packet!—is getting on with it:

what is this? what are all these things?
The bridge looks good.
It’s a huge drop.
Maxwell, Left To It

I am no longer debilitated with nowhere to tell my story
Of my fight with the dragon who hid the cave from me,
Which I am sorry to say, I am only annoyed at myself about,
Because it was always a cave, it always will be,
And now I’m just hungry so the dragon can have it. Where to?
I’m outside jumping on rain the whole time, like that game where you keep tapping the ball
To keep it up. But if I fall? That was letters ago! Feeling
And unfeeling are intertwined so much that you learn
The workings to never use them again: I tell them children
Who go past the cave when I’m there with my popcorn, not
To take too much in as it is only the teachers
Talking to their own dragon—hiding from their own cave;
And they should really only listen to themselves, boycotting
The binary books of weak clients.
Len Gurts… You… Nice One!

I am full of rage. I want to be soft. I smashed up a chair (it took too long

to understand softness was a thing—a possibility—I want to bite

the goose’s head off) I cry

and dribble. I am thankful that I think nothing

when I am crying—when no one is laughing at me in my head

for crying—when I am on the floor

heaving (next to the chair—and I hate that I held back—I hate that I have learnt

some control—I resent this in between

to meet soft—I want to cut open the goose) my mouth is metallic—

the right side of my face waves in and out of numbness with the neck, chest,

arm leg going tight—numb—I am so good

at doing this—I could rage and cry for my life. I am getting

so soft and good with rage (you have to be good

with your rage) I’ll be swimming in my dribble soon while I

watch the goose (sorry goose—I was angry

and making good with it—oh my oh my!)

*

OK. This is softness. The sky. Look! Blue! Colour.

The tears. Salt. Taste. Oh my—that made me shake. Rage again. Oh well. I smashed up a chair. Oh well.

Touch! My skin! My wet face! My skin

is here?
Len Gurts After One Workshop

Presents with the windows against your ears, your arms out
like a messiah collecting bits—“What do we have
here? Oh dear!”—into the work it goes
without another mention. I thinks there’s the very last of a dream going in? Could it be?
No. Don’t mention it. Now if the art becomes
just free association unsupervised, who is going
to be the first to have a problem with that
because I have, even if it is just tenderly nudging whatever could happen
without much concern for resources, capacities,
all the rage. I am all the rage—can you tell?
I was right in the middle and squeezing hard in trying
to keep this party together, but the mud, and outside,
and past the end of my nose—have you done that?
It’s like another world. I cannot imagine reading this out.
You always knew that was going to be the last shot too
of the dream, which you named. Time is
like touching it here and it made us shake
too much, concerned
with stupid and low-class pleasure. I hate this sound—
one that takes you back to when you were quiet
without much inspiration. I need a circle. I need a lift! An elevator.
A step down, because I am pecking at myself. Though I have that covered.
Albert K. Ashes-Bury on Critics

The bird
says, in the air, “I’m experiencing

flight,” to another
bird, that replies, “Yeah

but”: the first bird
flies away, I’m afraid. I didn’t want it to though.
Len Gurts—We See You and It’s OK

I have fell, and I can see the trees, finally. Does it show? One slip further
and I could have felt: perhaps

it wasn’t us after all? As I no longer believe
in the illusion of trees, and the conspiratorial

side of me only drafts
lies as I walk along in convoluted control; but

of what? Who knows. Though aren’t woods
loud and distracting.
Len Gurts Doesn’t Mind Abstract Control

I do not want to go that far down, it said, as it is in there
that the something or nothing that I know of (or don’t know of

it didn’t say) is, and I do not want that: leave me up here
shouting.

God (who was not here before): I want it.

*

God: I got it, it shaking slightly.

I got it down and
made it something or nothing—whatever it says—and now

I am not up but down
and something or nothing (but it does not know of).
Len Gur- Actually This Was Albert Doing a Len

An impeccable telephone manner will get you in a lot of trouble.
You know what? I watched several of myself for years. What happened?
Through all this I really thought I was putting my coats on, looking at myself
in the mirror.
It gets hard, walking straight, being in half,
skipping birthdays. My hair is so thick.
Soul? Coming and going?
This item is hidden from students.
Len Gurts Is Sexually Frustrated

Layers, layering,
like Lycra-thin dodgeball, unimaginably

playful like leopards—their teeth—
on your towels

on your back, biting; not
that it’s there: look

at all your layers.
Albert K. Ashes-Bury Poors Me

She won’t talk about love with me anymore, the therapist.
I’ll not mention it again. Even here.

I don’t want to open, close my eyes: you’re every colour.
Nothing makes sense. I’m supposed to be here

completely—everything should have happened as it did.
But it shouldn’t have, too. What do we do now?

I could pull my skin off nearly all the time.
Albert K. Ashes-Bury’s Rules

Write it out.
Let it write itself out.

Do not
read it. Do not study it.

(Know, somehow,
it will never be scripture.) Let it

fall. Save your generation.
Save all your generations.

Soften.
Repeat.
Maxwell’s Route to the Village Is This Way, but You’ll Need a Pass

A character, though not
Too: do not go all surreal yet.

This was not supposed to happen: you wandered in such ecstasy
Young. Now that boy is perhaps

Acceptable. You also take yourself so seriously,
Brushing your own teeth;

You can nearly differentiate birds
By their fluffy coats

In fountains. There’s no need for strangers.
Still wish you were all here though.
Len Gurts Sparsely Dates

Melancholia, sex, paint.
Lucrative, or wasted on first dates: no action taken—
all harm done.

I cannot decide. This menu! Pick for me?

Wanting to live the legend of myself
as tailored by a surviving bug, no one knowing my seedy habits.

I would be so relatable. I could construct a new medium for the public’s nighttime!

I knew it! Yours looks better.
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
Maxwell’s Mini Protest

She talked of mythical fathers before she

Kissed my forehead, twice, and said, “I wish

I was thirty years younger.” I didn’t

Ask once and I hope I never grow up.
Lee Gurts’ I Ching

It is noticeable when they say “meta”. They live above me.

You are the patio slab to my garden.

We would much rather glass to manure.

I knew someone for years and I realised whatever I realised so I started pretending I couldn’t speak the same language as them anymore. These things take guts.
Albert K. Ashes-Bury Lying

Closed the blind, my eyes,
my mind—and I am not going to write

what I was thinking, as it was sweet,
the moment, between dreams (pretend

there are only dreams, out here—the heat
and the quiet

being real) and…

…and it has just shivered through
now still: the evening before

this evening—and I am writing
what I know love is (I feel it): sweet moments—

clear;
thoughtless—

as if dreams.
Len Gurts’ Forward March

March’s mother was a grain producer.
March went to space.
March’s lawyer was a clerk. March
never thought of his nails. March installed
plenty. March became a beacon
of this here watering can. March produced
quality workmanship. March
never tried to spell the word “soufflé”. March is an attempt:
he would say this to me. March
was my lover? March was my lover.
March was birthdayless, an unforgiven
pie seller. Never candled did March.
March didn’t look a day over my watering can.
March, indoors and mostly unable to sell his work, but I support him: the world at fault: we have property on the farthest side of the lake: this can: he bloody hates it!
Len Gurts on a Soapbox Outside the Library Just Before He’s Arrested

How could it be
that the turn of a headless finger (there we go)
could face me here as I have forgotten? She will analyse

my lost or found love of what I had not, as it all
depends on the stage of my career, the overall urge
becoming a soft lean (what?!) fed up with me, me, already, two chances

by the names of “Art” and “Social” ready to present themselves
as engaging. I was going somewhere of late, the yard
full of tedium: I had something I promise but perhaps I should have

let them go, my attempts at the marriage
proving false. Plus you don’t have to tell me.
I did twist my finger! I did!

Not and—but—would you invite anything other than yourself
to the ceremony: those that throw nouns, glass houses (relates to fingers).
Albert K. Ashes-Bury Reminisces

Sometimes
it felt dead inside, the bars

like gaps in your teeth, the ones
that sent me away: I thought

I had to have a key. I am finished with this sentence.
Len Gurts Wants You to Try Write Something as Bad

I put this first line:
a synonym of “Columbus’s egg”
I know I will die
I use the time for this instead

This will also near miss
I write before I know
It’s like I’m unsure, but insist
Shit
Len Gurts’ Sort of Bougie Pollock Piece

I lie down: canvas. You drip marks,
strokes. “These are strokes.
These are strokes you are
are you sure?” I lie down.
I lie down. You are propped up against
the wall. You are in an easel. I am so happy—

crafted. I am painting.
I was canvas before and you made me.
The world has made me—this silent love.
I am sure of myself: this hard floor.
Marks? Strokes? Marks.
No strokes.

No you are fixed in the easel.
I am on this hard floor and I am fixed. These are marks.
Len Gurts Poem

Sink food catcher thing
Cover for bathroom shelf
Cover for all shelves
Tacks
Tacks for shelves
Check toilet seat
Cushion case
Light on ceiling by door
Throws
Sort books, shelves
Edit plants
Maxwell Getting On Side

“’You can teach some things about it. The poetry you can’t teach.’”
—David Hockney in ‘Portrait of the Artist as a Naughty Boy: David Hockney’, John Mortimer, In Character

My gargantuan friend circle is important to my truth.
I like Kendrick Lamar and Carhartt but I am not sure
On Eminem anymore so I keep quiet.
I am blindsided by my own colour.
Cities are the key to ending the monopoly of small towns, big industry and independent serial monogamy.
I’m joking! I say dogmatic things so convincingly just to riddle myselves.
I do not want mass surveillance. I do not wish to listen to anything outside myself either.
My therapist said this is safe; so don’t be toxic? He had a huge following in Jonestown.
My echo chamber is me knowing of people in Brighton and Berlin; and having driven between the two, I understand class issues are class issues for people I won’t be looking out the window at again.
I have now listened to Kendrick more closely
And… and I’m not sure.
But my date still likes him? Sweet!
My relationship does not fit into a sociological framework.
Your relationship is a testament to my sociological framework.