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Blog Post!

If you read one more blog
About how to write
Or play or create you might just find out
How to write
A blog and not feel anything.
What Are They Good For?

I have not heard
Any words
That are not adaptive.

I have not heard
Any words—
Any, anywhere words—
That are not adaptive
For the speaker. Author.

All that space. All those papers.
Attempts at universal order, meaning, truth,
Identity, experience, shaming,
Legitimacy, parenting, love,
With no awareness
Of the limitations
Of our words—the adaption
Of our whole life sentences.

I could not, surely,
Have just heard him say,
“I love my wife.” I know what he does at the weekend!
And I know
Her book club
On Tuesday evenings
Does not exist (they sometimes
Meet on Thursdays too).

O our beautiful words!
You make all this around us
Look meaningful and safe. I love you!

(A version of this poem was first published as ‘Adaptive Words, I Love You’ in A New Ulster, Issue 116, August 2022 (https://issuu.com/amosgreig/docs/anu116))
Cry if Want To, Need To, You Will

If it isn’t my birthday
And I’m not doing this right in the middle of tears
Then what was it all for?
I hate my body missing any of it
That the reason gets missed when you come back up
Circle back down

That love gets questioned
Friends get lost
Life falls far
Reality leaves you
And all you have left is yourself
And a pen.

I’ll take this down here though
Wrecked, screaming, shaking
Empty, alone, stripped
Because I feel the links breaking
And life keeps appearing
More and more each time.

But I won’t close the door completely.
I’ll be here when you’re dying
On the floor
On your birthday
When you realise dramatics don’t exist—
When you reach your own wreck, penless.
do not write anything concrete

the next line should leave space        ambiguity
        movement
and it is here that growth        truth
being
exist

but don’t conclude it
don’t put it        if you can
the longer the better

then capture
small bits
silently                in the night
and only release
        the good stuff
the helpful stuff

it is sickening        maddening        conceited
                confusing
but it chips away        somewhere        in them        like that
so we need to keep putting it out
those that need
        will find and take

there are negated rules                that can be followed
do not use growth
do not pose upside down
do not sound
        serious
so serious

in fact        don’t even talk                at all
if you can handle it        there could be no lines
        or space
        or growth        at all
just lead by example        taking the flack
        until they miss you
                get you

or don’t
It Is a Cliché

And I do not even want to look at you right now.
I will go to my room
To write, and I will come back when I am ready and re-sweet on you.

That’s better. I am rested for more sessions.
My future children are dead for us. My own child
Lives on instead and he is sick and hot

From this troubled and patterned relationship
With both of you while I pretend it’s me in charge, that someone
Could ever be in charge as I smile

At the puzzle of who conceived who in this triangle, for it is unfamiliar
And lifelike and no way to be, yet I relish
The rising and falling valleys of home that leave me soaked

In discharge still, consenting sometimes, this feeling
Being poetic and lonesome with you always, you who is amusing—or
A muse—for a man who cannot cut that cord, these strings; and that is

All better again now—accepted, weathered, cried;
Thank you!—and I am finally growing up, making love
For all my girls and girls like a good boy.
Delusional Content Trying to Be Stanzaic

O my god, flashed and splashed in dreams
And number plates: you dash off
For I am not quite ready to be baptized.

The word is wrong—the world is wrong:
You are showing us spirit, not psychosis, aren’t you?
Stop those smiles! I… are they…? If not

Come back, because you are true now.
Why do you make us scream and read wrong?
Priest, analyst, body: you have done

What you can,
But this is my own villainous expedition now:
I am sure that car… that car… him… me…

It is not abstract or popper: we are our own
Theory of anything, and right now, that symbol
Is beeping damage at me.

God? Goddddd? Are you in here? Am I out there?
Because it’s me: your son.
The walls are coming down

But I am a bit too much
Of everything
For the time being, big guy.
Early Diss (Ghosts & Tray)

I’ll love you always, but you won’t feel any of it,
Will you?
You’ll lie with others, no rhythm
Or reason
And neither of you will get it
And only one of you
Will ever come.

The boys, the boys:
They’ll look anything but your father.

I’m aware it might not hit you until they hit you.
I wanted to feel free and loved, but our games
Were not exclusive.
And how many rules did you change?
Then your child’s play would act up—mine too;
But I want a badge
For at least feeling guilty.

Your type: they are a debut muse.
People leave towns for you and make it big.
My spiritualisation will be televised, but I’m worried

You will only have ghosts
And tray.
Headless

The redundant tiler
Comes to the king’s floor
To petition him
For the hand of his one daughter.

“King! My glorious King!
You are my Master, me
Your servant. I am not worthy, but I am
Without canvas.

If I could have one night
With your daughter, not for
That, but for her
To feel my warmth and work,

She would know, and you would see,
That my being is not done, and I could exist
To fulfil her life
And love her.”

All the king’s men
Begin to laugh in the chamber, but the king
Hushes them.
“You fools. You fools!

Can you not see: he is
The redundant tiler
Finally, and it is he
That my daughter seeks and loves!”

The king leaves his throne, with
His arms raised in the air,
And strides over
To the tiler.

“King!” shouts the tiler, and, “Redundant
Tiler!” shouts the king.
And the king
Drops to his knees

And they embrace
And cry in each other’s arms, before the king
Breaks away
To bellow again.

“Guard! You—guard!” The king points
To the nearest guard.
“Bring me my daughter!”
The guard

Looks confused, but the jester
Creeps past and taps
The guard’s right blazer
Pocket, the guard, relieved, putting

His hand inside
And pulling the king’s daughter from inside.
But as the guard
Walks towards the king and the tiler with the princess

She jumps from the guard’s hand,
And as she runs
Out the chamber
On her hands, the king

Releases the tiler, shouting, “Never!
Never!
Guard! Kill this
Redundant tiler

Before I change my mind!”
And the king
Backs away from the tiler.
“And so it goes,” says the

Tiler, and the guard
Removes his sword
And runs it through
The tiler’s neck.
The Opening Italics Can Be Sung to the Tune of ‘Lord of the Dance’

he, he, whoever he may be
doesn’t exist metaphysically, and he cannot seem
to decide whether he believes we should be
where we are now        or where we are going.

are we (we! where does he
consistently get that from?) are we to be
present here reading his words, or should we be
far out        in future        without them?

there is no separation, but he wants us
to understand this through the very
same        gaps?        the…        the…
O what constants can we even find to criticise him?

do recall, that the Buddha had everything before
he was able to find nothing; so don’t trust any of it
don’t go after any of it. or go after all of it?
either way, you’ll lose? win? already have?

you are not going to get this. none of this
can be grasped. we cannot write the question
let alone answer it, and at the end of the day
it was distinct food poisoning that won.
Someone Else’s Noise

My fictional mother said to me—she said, “Find you a man
That does nothing and is content with it, because then
You can do whatever you want with your life unquestioningly, and when you change

Your interests or are in
A bad mood and don’t love him anymore—for remember

My baby: it is always contingent—then it will not

Matter, and it will allow you both to live in peace, potentially.”
The moral I took from my fictional mother

And sexual orientation is that we can make up
Whatever we want that helps, and that there seems
To be something
About the words moving down the lines

At the right time (it could have really
Been the next) and that it is tough
To experience the world absolutely as your own
When you are transfixed in finding it
In someone else’s noise.
I Won’t Go to Work Today

up
shower
eat
stretch

coffee coffee coffee. pen. lines lines lines

lid closed out loud out loud out grit spit read
coffee talk closed my very easy method. seat

seat. credentials. barcode.
empty
if there are no commitments to the existences then our theories can be discarded
(my word she’s here again)
the clock! every eeny meeny miny moe
emergency stop
this is your destination

drained and full of lines that will go in the bin
marked out mark
remove the tubes from the nose and lose the following hours
in this instance, it looks better lowercased
Pneumatic Skips With a Purse

Long things with pumps—
They all fall down—
Still ride steady—
Pneumatic skips with a purse—
The whole world in bones and sealed paint—
You make it all move, you know.

O what a show!
A spectacular show of smoke and mirrors—
The words and the tap in her act.
All the marks: they must mean something—
The public is desperate for it to mean something.
Bed goes up, bed goes down,
Cheap, quiet and ahead.
A Time

I have watched my body do things it has not wanted
But has needed, venturing with me into sickness

And madness, darkness and despair with violent love
And falsity, beating its way into minds through too-hard logic

Guising itself as care and God, victim and misjudged,
Holding me at a distance, carefree, careless, unable

To watch in intoxication with myself and other
Tormentors, participating in my own epiphenomenal child’s play

With a word lurking now: confession—used pathetically
As a scapegoat around a veiled and cowardly vocabulary, a pitiful cry

From the dead of night, the worst of me and my body
Not remembering (it has allowed me

A continued distance)——yours

Not needing deliverance to be healthily beat
And rid; for we are held safely in turmoil—and we must

See it as reasoned: for the predetermined sinners—sinned—
To disappear. For all our dirty bodies to be worth something.
It’s Actually Spice

She calls her cat Lesley
And knits with real zeal

But really

She loves riding the bus
And sitting over the wheel.
Early Looks at Himself

Each mini death
Creates a mini you
A new one to fall in love with
To fall out with, too

It maybe means you aren’t
The devil, a nutjob, a sham…
They were just things I made up
In childish efforts to find the man

So could we try again one day
When I’ve changed, grown—been born
Because I’m starting to admit, slowly
That it was me all along after all
Harmony

The singular thread
Of the sound in my head
Is the noise from my pen
Being what they all said.
Len Gurts Saves

“…And you are so beautiful.
You are enough
and you deserve to be loved.
Look within yourself
and find
all the love and truth
and meaning
you want.

You can have it all.
You can feel at peace.”

I really regret saying it now.
Bit cringe. Bit funny.
Mostly funny now.
Albert K. Ashes-Bury Takes Further Control (He Thinks)

I have a “Writing” folder
        which contains a “Poetry” subfolder
                which has 49 poems in it
                        as well as two further subfolders
                        which have 114 poems between them
        It also contains a “Stories” subfolder
                which has 28 stories in it
                        as well as another subfolder
                        with 22 stories in it
        a “Personal” subfolder
                with 25 documents in it
        a “Maybe” subfolder
                with 4 documents in it
        and a “Dead” subfolder
                with 156 documents in it
                        as well as a “Really Dead” subfolder
                        with 52 documents in that

And every single word in them
        contains her
                                and here I am…

                                                No
                                                        No no no

No I am not doing it again
Write then delete

                                        This will be the last one.
Albert K. Ashes-Bury’s the Hardest; The Hardest

Been burnt. Big words all gone.
That was it, I think. You were in my toddler dreams, I swear.

“I dropped it all for us”: this is the lowest conversation.
I couldn’t quite believe how safe and chilling it was.
Dumb, dumb vocabulary; discovering music too old.
Such outliers, we were, with good lies.

They sound standardised, these antiquated narratives.
But parents and our lovers: what else is there?
And it gets bigger and bigger and bigger, and I’d like to remember
anything else about time.

No. Don’t say, “I never enjoyed it,” again, as I think we filled each other
perfectly, and I can’t quite forgive how equal it felt and tasted.
Now I watch someone else die on screen, and it is us, and it is
so serious—we made sense of everything—all I’d
ever doubted—all they wrote about it.

I’m too young, too: I shouldn’t be this sick and full on…
…I can never quite say it…
Barely breathing; thinking of you smiling
through the bars. No one—in all the stories—can have ours.

I don’t care now—I don’t care. I’ll die
all over again I promise. And you know, they can change
the narrative as we do. Look at him here: he’ll consider
anything.
We won’t have to try. It can just happen for us
with silly tries.

And I won’t finish the sentence—I won’t—I won’t—
I-
I can’-
I jus-
I won’-

That was really it, I think. The hardest; the hardest;
don’t keep adding to it.
I suppose some don’t even get this: long drives; each note;
every movement. Then a fire.
Len Gurts’ Edgies

there is a light touching a
moon kissing a
frog pushing a
Loch Ness trouser snake in the bin.

this language may be suggestive to your reader: and it very well
may be! it very well may be.
but we got to get past
these flashpoints.

squirrels on the roof and she be raging.
they worry what they sound like animalled.

i decide the loser.
Len Gurts’ Debut

“You are smothering me!
You are too needy and I am drowning”
Strange thing for her to say
I know she likes choking

OK. Alright.
If we’re going there
I tried and tried
You lied and cried
I forgave all
sweetly
desperately
You had weak rebound sex
embarrassingly
presumably
I, sometimes, miss us
You, all the time, the cunnilingus
Yet I am needy
while you still need me
at the best of times
at 3 a.m.
at the worst of times
at 3 a.m.

But in your infinite wisdom
your childlike foolishness
you forced me to change my phone number
Now your light, darkness, hope, despair
your incredulous noise
is alone
comparing
in the night
Now who’s needy?

But one day, this will all come out
in a messy, snotty wash

Then we’ll have dinner, talk surface
and have one messy, snotty… bosh!

Until then, you are in the past
I only ever really think about you from behind
Albert K. Ashes-Bury’s Little Boy

“Stand by me, my apprentice
Be brave, clench fists”
—The Streets, ‘Turn the Page’

Little boy
This will be hell
So so so so dark for you
Unimaginable
Indescribable
Bleak
Empty
The outer most edges of horror

Little boy
Clenched fists
Such a beautiful, joyous, strong, herculean little boy
I am waiting here
We are coming back together
I see you
I see your…
              It is indescribable

Little boy
Remember some words
The body will do what it needs
Your experience will tear for the right reasons
You will have to know some parts of this universe
              that you should not have had to
You will have to feel some even further
              more terrifying parts

Little boy
You can leave them
You will leave them
Leave them
Take nothing with you
No—you owe nothing
Leave every inch there
You owe nothing
Come here for good things
Feel no guilt
But feel
Feel
Feel
Feel
Feel
You have left
It is safe
Feel

Little boy
Yes—feeling is allowed
And it’s really really terrifying too at first
But trust in me
Trust in you
You have left, you have left
They are not here anymore
You are not there anymore
My hand waits
              out here
              for you
              for us
It will never ever move

Little boy
I am at your level
I can see you
Confused
Frenzied
Battered
You don’t know what doubt is, do you
You don’t even know what real is, do you
It all feels like nothing, doesn’t it
You feel nothing
Remember nothing
Experience nothing
You are not yet born

Little boy
Still clenched fists
Bide your time
Hold it in and bring it here
Come here
Come to me
You do not know what I, you, us can do with it all here
Will do with it all here
I will go through countless dark nights of our soul
Repeated
Constant
Machine-like
Fucking eat them I will
You will not believe what you will give me
That horror
              will be like child’s play
              if you just hold it in for now

Little boy
There will be no fucking doubt
              over and over and over and over and over
              and over and over and over and over and over
              No fucking doubt
We fucking win
Look
              Little boy
Look at this
              Little boy
Look at me
              Little boy
Look at you
              Little boy
Look at us
My hand waited
You can come in now
It’s eaten
I ate it
It’s gone
We fucking won

O little boy
You are so so amazing
The things you will see
The places you will go
So so unfathomable
But to come back here
Keep going
You are the most amazing little boy in the world
Keep going
You are the most amazing little boy in the world
And you are here
And up
And the most amazing boy, man, me, in the world
Keep going
Keep going
Keep going
Albert K. Ashes-Bury Practices More

…and so it is words
that are the final means to save us, and I am using them all
then throwing them away

and I am left with that feeling of dying, which is good
like I might not say anything in the not so distant future
when the future goes away too

and I may be spilling words
in another century, as another writer

and I might start to accuse myself of cynicism

and I might be making uninferrable jumps

but when I am writing the above kind of stuff less
just doing the feeling of the words instead

then I will be gone
with all the words
in all the stories and art and poetry

and I’d have completed
whatever it was
everything came for…
Len Gurts Gets a Book Deal

When we’re all universally accepted
they’ll be no publishing anyway. The answer? Well you bought it!
Len Gurts Being Albert K. Ashes-Bury?

It seems to only be about how I come to be
in the morning, if I can keep my mornings

please, as everything up and down—from the maths
to the love—is decided there. How loose!

How immaterial and whimsical! Learning to only feel
my body: I think nothing new there

on the best of days—on the most undefined
of days—as I am so good at just being there, sometimes,

that there be no words for poems.
Len Gurts Apparently Not Saying It

“I wanna fuck everyone in the world
I wanna do something that matters”
—Nine Inch Nails, ‘I Do Not Want This’

O I would—all day.
All day with all of them, I would.
All day with all of them I tells ya!

But I wouldn’t dare say it out loud.
I’ll think it, but I wouldn’t dare say it out loud.
Wouldn’t dare speak up about any of it; only

give it another voice instead, perhaps
make it sound a bit creepy
on paper.
Len Gurts Feels Like Pablo

I’m practicin my- I am practising my wor-
You know how some musicians
are good enough to play their instruments
poorly, yet they still sound really great? I want
to do that with a poem, so it’s good and bad
at the same time but that’s apparent. It’d perhaps
be arrogant, too? (That’s always my fear—lamps
under bushels again: Jesus Christ!) So how wud 1
make it apparent and still good
and coherent overall? You know, so it looks casual
and thrown together, but a little bit good? (I wish I could use “caj”
in a poem. Is that spelt right?) And what is to be made
of such an attempt? Why would one bother? And what would it say
about me? Put something psychoanalytic here, perhaps, or
some philosophy without directly using the jargon. Metaphysics? Or your independently writing
pen? I’m not sure how to even spell
that first “practising.” Why?
Really—why this? What does it say about you?
Unpicking that would be a good start.
Albert K. Ashes-Bury’s Psychological Warfare

You came to my lands and you stood on me.
You stood on my body and my home and my children.
You burnt everything.
You burnt everything.
You left me with nothin-

O, but you looked so very handsome
in your outfit when you came!
If you wanted to
you could make someone—even yourself!—
so very proud.

And if you need it, I’ll say it: I ever so love you.
You can have that until you don’t need it anymore.
I ever so love you, you ever-so-loved, you—

you left me with ever-so-love you.
Len Gurts: “the England hero who ‘writes his own scripts’”

I hope they do think
“What a load of shit.”
This shit might get the next rat
to write rather than rolling around in filth
cutting themselves and crawling around
in filth and shit and cutting themselves.
So what if it’s a load of shit. What a load of shit.
More people would rather read this
than shit. Yours is shit if no one wants it.
Len Gurts Goes All Messiah Complex

That performer
is doing it for them.

Give him your category mistakes
and snakes and scurvy
your crazy and lurgy
and you’ll get bubblegumable chews
of paisley or jogging bottom
Shelley or Johnny Rotten
back

because all of us are in you
each disciple and Pilate
pilates or beer gut
all of it
West Bank or Jew.

He will be gorgeously perverse and filthy on every border
he will eat Eve out and leave tea spout stains
end pain in every fine chinaed garden
that don’t let all the bands in
recklessly abandoning social cause and pan handling measures
of austerity.

There is not an art budget. There is no STEM.
We build what we like.
And what is there
but a performance
always
that we direct
despite… what says, exactly?
Who says, exactly?
Who is saying.

What is there
but your performance—your lies along with theirs?

Get off your cross: I’ve snapped it.
Albert K. Ashes-Bury Improves

I go to the kitchen to get water and wash a plate
I speak to my housemate
She is preparing a pie
I tell her about when I got into making pastry a bit last year
Not making my own pastry, just making pastries
Rolling out the ready-made stuff
You can make rough parcels easily and they are forgivable and forgiving
No wonder people are bewildered
I wash my plate as we chat
Leek, bacon and potato are hers
I fill my glass
Nothing sweet in the cupboard—no need to look
I say enjoy and leave
I’m not self-conscious. A change. Today’s point
I go back to my room
I take off my slippers. I simultaneously cry
My eyes were watering earlier too
I walked down the street and it flowed
I have stopped wiping them now
I enjoy smiling at people with my tears and big heart. One doctor felt it
I do streets with wet or puffy or pretty eyes now and I’m unconcerned
I lie on the sofa. I jot a poem
It is light and big hearted
I might watch the second episode of Gazza
I wonder if that will autocorrect to the strip, goes by
I’m glad I have the big heart and the humour
I felt Gazza in the first episode, I really did
I think I can relate to his humanity but I wouldn’t tell a doctor or a reader that
Unrelatable empathy for non-sports fans
But it is doing something for me, so who cares
When I play football I imagine I look that good
There was a point in it somewhere
I can enjoy speaking to my housemates now
Maybe I should try making pastries again
Len Gurts Being a Shit

Pulling that off from        over there
and picking that up from…

Even I hesitate at that;

but I’ll peek a look and see
its condition;
the        mess        it’s        put        me
                                in—
this in.

In the longgggg runnnnn, though,
it is being silly,
yet I’ll feel. Better:
just        feel.

They may
say
“As a starling by a lake
in a whisp”
that this is not a poetic thesis.
That voice will be turning the lights off
before it puts its thing in, I don’t doubt it.
Though I could be there

holding his hand
offering my cookie jar for him to try.
Len Gurts Reads Poem Out on Date

Swimming and needless.
Kissing and just us.
Don’t make me stop:
I feel like Jesus.

Christ alive: a joke!
Objectivity? A sacred poke?

Nah—I’m not coming down.
Nope nope nope.
Albert K. Ashes-Bury With Another Wincer

This voice of mine
that comes in rhyme:
not me, wholly,
but safety.
Len Gurts Wellness Practitioner

She is going to go “Bump!” A big
smack bang wallop bump.

So I’ll help, not with words,
but pump pump.
Albert K. Ashes-Bury Making You Wince

I have fallen uncontrollably in love
sixteen times already today
and each was it: the one!

Mummy—why didn’t you say anything?
Len Gurts Practises Too (Also Precious)

Where is my second coming (but I did try
my hardest!) who does not need
to write or read
any of this
anymore? Who knows
and provides, not only in smut, but in touch,
reality, the fall?

Imagine if she didn’t
care about rhymes, too! Heavenly. Only

saw me on the bus, pulled me off,
lifted my hood

and flicked the grabless tuts off my chinny-chin-chin
as we got raptured and smushed.
Len Gurts Alone, Though

I could pull back veneer after veneer—
the “Who is it that told you that?”s—
fast costumes and castoff relief: a dress, a sexuality—
a line all the way back to one of the memorabilia wars—
stand on a corner and sell my aesthetic—
stand on a pole and still my ascetic;
and the my my mys of me could go
go go chiselling into the anatomy of nothing being at the bottom (where
would the poet come up? I hate this piece—it is really sickening to me;
but I am still here quite wrongly
and from this unlovable position will come my march). Fictions are, for me,
the only way to do it coherently: hide
behind creativity in missed premises;
throw out what you don’t want in a poetic character (mine is a cynic
today/a lot) then there is that emptiluminicity:
just about the end of a limb dragging an open shape across a tree
its face shouting at no one—charging at no one—perhaps
(none of it is about one singular thing—
law of identity or all equals all or it’s just the same thing or vice versa.
Pulling back layers and not taking them with you—
more you, less this;
and more consistently alone
but then everything else.

This is why I hated the piece then: it was all
a waste until this last bracket? But it demonstrates the stripping and the stripping—
the guff we preamble in—
then the bracketed nonsense more or less left behind. How experientially cute though
only. 2007 me would be baffled, my sickening
the only consistent layer maybe: insight, bro!).
Albert K. Ashes-Bury Stood Up

Two foxes were lying in the sun
in my garden. I’m not into

such things, but
I must be facing straight. Or is the other website right?
Len Gurts Thinks He’s Dropped a Mic

I want to sell
enough poetry
to afford the therapy
to stop needing poetry.
Len Gurts Lying in Bed the Morning After a One-Night Stand

Jackdaw at her window. Does it purposely knock?
Will it get to us soon? It does tap quite hard.

“Don’t write about this! Don’t be that.
But live—love—only as you must.”

OK, Jack—it’ll be done.
But you got to get away from me first.
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).
Len Gurts Temporarily Down Park Street

Stopped wearing a helmet because I’m ready.
Stopped going to appointments because I’m done.
I am right at the very edge of this thing now pushing

finger-sand sliders through bangs
like haphazardously-stabbed butter—got neck muscles
like a replaced jump man over drums; so I shall not

let them say whether I should live or die. And I shall not
let them instruct my cutey

bootied bounce. Therefore, it is of this
that feels so good now (O I dip. But have you ever

heard a guru talk about their commute?)
Albert K. Ashes-Bury in His Sleep

“‘you could be a bitch or step out the margin,’ I got up quick”
—Kendrick Lamar, ‘Father Time’

“If you are Goliath, how on earth do you defeat someone who thinks like that? You could kill him, of course”
—Malcolm Gladwell, David and Goliath: Underdogs, Misfits, and the Art of Battling Giants

“Arnold: ‘Don’t hit me, I’ll hit me! I’m crazy!’
Harold: ‘Wow, you really are crazy. Wanna join our club?’
(The kids cheer.)
Helga: ‘Boys are so stupid.’”
—Hey Arnold, ‘24 Hours to Live’

You aren’t listening you don’t understand you can’t touch me.
Half my face will paralyse and I will slop yogurt across my cheeks and chin and it doesn’t matter.
I will ride delusions and psychosis and solipsism
all the way down
and up
and it doesn’t matter. What can you do to me now?
What can you do to this now?
I will scream into the night for months and years and I will tell myself I am Jesus and to have no doubt and that I am magical and beautiful and true and you aren’t listening and you don’t understand and you can’t touch me
Do not believe me if you want—I believe myself
You can twist my reality but I’ve finally built my own
You can try to rape me again but I’m too big now
I’m too strong
I’m too strong
What do you think you could do?
Feel wherever you are for the answer—it is a sincere request:
what do you think you could do, then, now?
You cannot stop this
I will build a whole world to only eat it all
I will kill everything and everyone to breathe one true breath—my one and only true breath
You aren’t listening or understanding and you can’t touch me
What could you do with this now?
What could you do with me now?

There is no contingency today and I know what my words can do. I have made them godlike. It is a sincere question: what are you going to be able to do about them now? I do not worry for you, but I am interested in how you can approach this. My words: they are a potion and the devil. I believe you might die. I really believe you might be killed by them now! There is no pulling back here: scan through again. What can you do now? You cannot make me quiet. Do you realise how long this takes to get here? What can you do? You cannot rape me again. You cannot rape my body or mind or existence again. It is so simple; I am beaming—hysterical—gleeful
You cannot look at us and rape us and lie again
You just can’t. I went all the way down and up and across all the hysteria and psychosis and I have seen and believed and been everything
So what could you do now?
What are you going to do now with this?
You’ve no idea where I can keep going to and breaking myself from to win. To win and be. I do not stop. You cannot touch this. I do not stop
Truly, I’ve not even begun with you yet either
Wait until I have this more together
I’d learn another language. Shoot your cognition out perhaps
I do not worry for you, but I really do not know what you do now

I cannot stop thinking and saying it: what can you do to this now?
I don’t not sleep or walk around delirious or scream now. I do this. I have this. Now what can you do? My face fails and I love it. I eat and slop it all. What can you do?

What did you go and create? A warped world of me and in me, but what now? You didn’t know about this by-product. This is not creative expression. This is not controlled or formal. There is no distance here to produce some safe outlet. This is me and what I can and will do now. What can you do now?

I have words, that’s it. I am extremely amiable otherwise. It is terrifying—they aren’t me and they are. But what did you create? They are going to slowly, slowly kill you, I think.

What can you do? Look—I’m not stopping.
You lie and twist and rape and can’t listen.
You might die.

No no no no no I love you
I send all the love
Every drop of it from everything and everyone
Love love love love love love love
What can you do now?
What can you do to me now?
Love love love love love love love
I found it all out what can you do I send every drop of it
back
And love love love love love
Drank the potion chewed that devil up above and spat him out here like look devilllllloveeeee O it’s love here now
What you going to do
when I really get started

You don’t understand now I’m here now I’m psychotic now I’m wild now I’m penning now but I’m here now so what can you do with this now when I really get started

I would hold you and your arms and listen and understand and not touch it’s all love love love
Do what you want with it
Len Gurts Taking Stock

“I see that kingfisher print everywhere. I really like that candle holder!”
Am I really here? Is this really
my voice?
My life has certainly changed: I have tastes
and likes. Actual tastes and likes!
I know what punctuation works, too—just about?
I do not worry about overusing “I”s now either: it is luxurious
up here.
Sorry! I also seem to have a piece
of writing that expresses myself
on my hands: I hate myself
again; disgusting disgusting
art and kissing girls
in gift shops that run
gift shops that can’t
sit still so they redo
the stocktake: three litres of White Lightening
this ain’t.
Len Gurts Thinks He’s David Chase

Something shiny (but it must
be flat) with a wide

enough shadow
to hide a lot of rubbish

and lies. I must not… my oh my:
I must never again

collect up all that rubbish!
See the significance, first,

I shall—watch a significantly
good series about similar grief

and guilt: the links
in this matrix:

it’s Pie-O-My for me.
Len Gurts Is for the Children

“Let your feelings slip, boy, but never your mask, boy”
—Underworld, ‘Born Slippy (Nuxx)’

I was a dead tree or dead boy—something like that; but at a minimum
I was a detached “maybe”—a something very far away from here—
and I just wrote and read (though sometimes
I didn’t even take the words in: I would just stare blankly
at the Fyodors and Plaths believing osmosis
would just do something, perhaps? Some of the wordsmiths: they would laugh
at that. But this isn’t the place for them! Although, if that is you: sympathy
for the little shits, please?) when suddenly, as if
in a flash (because why not, good reader—why the fucking hell not:
does it not merely seem like a flash—like nothing—if we ever
get the chance to live this thing right?) I was here
and built and writing, but with lots of visible screw-heads and stripped bark: I had narrative
and front and back; I could use metaphor (“I was a ship
in the storm and lasted like shit. / Rained loads. Bad trip. / Got very wet
and sunk-ish.”) but I had no idea what this all was for: “Why
am I having to do this now?” I thought. Now I look back
at the so-called other trees lost in the woods, and I worry
I can do nothing for them with this. And I have no idea
why—as a mere “maybe”—I survived (I cannot pat
my bark or inner chil- (leave off) and say, “Great story. So brave. Well done!”). And the forest:
it was much more fun in there! I ran amok! Writing
and editing and reading myself back now though, I feel
I’m still out there fighting all of this instead, as a lot of that dead boy
clearly longs to remain lost in the woods.
Len Gurts Doing Funny (He Hopes)

I will be incredibly weird and charming.
I will add all of your friends and be my best self

over and over and over again, for you
and for them, but also cut straight to the point here: Would you like to

have sex? Would you let me fuck you? Can we be intimate
together? I think it would be great. And I am only

direct in this way as I know it is in the known
that we make each other feel good

and right, even from here, even though
we are both so far away from each other—even with

huge barriers between us
like us never having met each other before; as I can feel

our salty seas making endless poetry, it pouring
out of us creamily, like, “Nah, mate—this just sounds really weird.”
Albert K. Ashes-Bury on “Big Hearts”

But of course, there are many big hearts!
They saw me and smiled when I was wild.
They brushed against me when I didn’t realise
always just as I needed them
always when I was on the cusp of going too far.
What super big hearts. What silent deities.

And one of them in the supermarket today: she let me
have the last baguette!
And her heart said, “I love you I love you
I love you,” to mine.

And it is really just as brilliant and easy as that, I promise.
It really is a very simple method for them.

And I promise they are there always, sneaking about
as mere dough-martyrs, some days.
Len Gurts Deep

Loved me for years:
“Soul mate, my soul mate!”
Then too deep, too deep—
said I was, “Too deep!”
and ran away from me.

Then came back!

And I said, “Stop looking a gift horse.”
And she said, “But you neigh-ver did seem so!”
And I said, “Nor you, my trusty steed.”
And she said, “Now you’re just being silly—I love you!”

And I said I said I said,
“Now don’t you get too deep now.”
Albert K. Ashes-Bury’s One Stanza to Feel

I must believe there is something sublime always
even when I forget this, as I have felt the negation
of this, of not just the sublime but of everything
for most of this.

But that was it just then. Honestly. Did you feel that?

That just got something turning—the skin bubbling—
and I don’t need to stress the effort that it takes over time
but it is always, always doable and sublime
only as it may eventually be for you.
Len Gurts With Wine

“How do we ease it all only
ease it all!” I just don’t know, but you are mad
beautiful and fine, and right now, I can only offer you

this wine. And I would like you
to take the edge off
for once.
Albert K. Ashes-Bury Sitting in Eat-A-Pitta Listening to Rupert Holmes ‘Escape (The Pina Colada Song)’

I will cry anywhere during anything because it just hits sometimes, the beauty
of feeling—the pureness of the music—
its volume—the volume—it being especially loud in here but it isn’t
that—it isn’t that—it’s that I can feel it and feel it and feel
more and more and more all the time, this being what this is, whatever
this all is now. And I forgive everything. And it is unpoetable

how the rising and shivering and crying comes and I am here—
I am so here—not comprehending the rest of this thing that is left
to go as I am so here, and so many others will be now
too, and that is poetable, as all is forgiven, as I love everything and you are getting here.

I cannot tell you how loud the volume can go:
it is like moving into another existence—another plane;
it is like being born and absurd and simple and it is just a rise
and a shiver and a cry as a rush like that—like this—even in Eat-A-Pitta

to Rupert Holmes. And ‘It Wasn’t Me’

by Shaggy coming in wasn’t expected
or necessarily appropriate either. Life can be funny and absurd
and simple and so loud at times. I forgive you.
Maxwell Disturber of the Peace (Manifesting)

“I write youthful base poetry”
—Duo Duo, ‘Handicraft’

Yes thank you yes thank you yes thank you yes thank you.
Yes thank you I am about to die and they are going

To intern me in the Abbey—the grand old
Westminster Abbey. And not only that, but Poet’s Corner!

My game has been a long one: I am not really ill
Or dying. For when I am in there

In my box in the corner
I am going

To pass wind.
Albert K. Ashes-Bury’s May

May you be born easily and hugged tightly
when that is needed. May you never
have to study or read or philosophise
or write poetry. May you never have to think
of anything.

May love and all its quilts never haunt you.
May physicality not be loaded—sex
safe, health being sniffles and old age
at best. May you accept
summer and winter in any climate.

May you not overanalyse anything written.
May you not have to scrutinise
the motivations and dirty wills of others.
May you nod at dirt without judgement
but from far away.

May you at worst write your own.
Len Gurts’ Slit Gong Metaphor

He stood in the square banging his drum.
It made a repetitive beat.
No one asked about it.
A crowd never stopped.
It could have meant anything—nothing.
A woman came from another village.
She heard the drum, stopped.
So did he.
Len Gurts Advice

After Roxette

On rehearing songs
you loved years ago
but didn’t understand why: “Fuck!
I really should have
listened to my heart.”
Early Effort by Maxwell

“Jeremy spoke in class today”
—Pearl Jam, ‘Jeremy’

Why don’t you like the idea of my type knowing what we’re on about?
Why don’t you like the idea of my type knowing how the books work?

It’s like we can string sentences together.
It’s like if you listened—if you let us breathe—you’d hear that we can talk and you’d know that we know what we mean; that we make sense.

And it’s like you do exactly what you charge those powerful ones over there with: you think we couldn’t possibly understand what is going on.
But we do, we just consciously don’t give a shit, because how dull is it to argue over the amount of literature writers should be reading?
Albert K. Ashes-Bury Is Sad, I Think

I am not “sad.” I am not it, but, I am going through “it”.
But I do feel so sad. I am so lonely, so lonely, so lonely.

It is nothing I have learned how to share yet.
I have consistently invested in sunk-cost fallacies.
I am blaming—everything I cannot do is a projection
of my own judgement: I did not believe anyone could feel like this;
I did not know such sadness existed.

I can be quite romantic with woe, so when a tear
runs down my finger I feel good about it. But
it is still sad—it is really painful—only this is better
than no feeling at all. I relate to films in these moments—
to something. I am so sad, along with the people
in the screen, but at least I no longer exist behind one.

I analyse myself with this—the better of much sadnesses:
“This one comes with more feeling, at least.”
There used to be spaces very beyond sadnesses: “I must compare—
remember.” All are methods to measure progress—hope.

I’m not sure what I’m doing with this now, but this feels
a touch easier: I am not still hearing what is sunken; I am not
holding the tears in. And the screams. Man—those things…

But they’ve passed; though, I am so lonely with it.
So lonely with it.

My screen is insisting it goes again:
“Well, that’s what you’ve wrote.”
Len Gurts on Len Gurts

“Dissection is a virtue when
It operates on other men.”
—Theodore Roethke, ‘Lines Upon Leaving a Sanitarium’

So I know more than the other boys, as those other boys
are rubbish. Naff. They are so crass, honey. Sorry I meant
friend. They do all sorts to get girls, baby. Women: sorry again.
Not like me though—I understand. I don’t act tough or cool.
Or act: not at all. I don’t play up to you. But let’s talk

about the other boys forever. Let’s compare me to
the other boys who just act silly. They aren’t like me: I am so
serious with my poetry. Whereas they… they act all cool
and false (I should know). And I should know, as I used to
hang around with them a bit, yeah. Yeah—you see

I know how they fake it. O yes—I know all the funny
things they do, like, throwing other guys
under the bus when trying to impress you, acting all cool. You know? I said
“cool” already? Yeah. Well. Yeah. And they don’t
think about things. Or philosophy. Or poems. And their

poetry is dross, if they even do it, that is. Not like me.
You know what, baby? I mean, honey. I mean girl. I mean
woman OK; you know what though? I understand. Those other
boys though? Man. Boys! They don’t know. They aren’t like me.
They’re always comparing, you see. Whereas me… me…
Maxwell on Imitations and Allusions and “After”s and Credit and All That

After Googling it

Who
Cares.
Len Gurts Tries Narrative

The count left. He wasn’t really
a count, but he let them have that.
“You know who the count is, don’t you?”:
the sayers. The sayers.

Then he left. What did he build? O a great thing. An almighty
thing. Little did he detach though: he built
what he left behind, the very human
thing that he was. The count…ess? The count-ees, if you will, were left

with all his pills and money but no blood, which made them
wither, blaming and blaming the count. The count (do not forget
his name; but
maybe you could make up your own?) said little

sometimes, sending drops to appease. But could they be pleased? What do you think?
What do yours do
when you visit, at night? His ones
laugh while he flies

through the darkness still too scared to cross the river.
Albert K. Ashes-Bury Hopes No One Need Understand This

After Mary Oliver

I add After to many of my own now, but before?
I admit, I found it difficult, as I couldn’t really relate to poetry.
I found most of it quite irritating, and it made me angry,
not being able to feel or understand the poems.
Instead, I would have a thought, like, I don’t experience life like that at all!
but layers would mask over thought, layers that remained confused,
protective, this leaving me unable to grasp a lot of things. I couldn’t access
trees or air or deer, for instance, and certainly
none of that love thing, or even the most basic of feeling,
all of which appear in many poems. I think I only had access to fear,
not that I can remember, nor do I wish to; and I still do, at times,
only feel that same fear becoming terror very deeply.

But my terror is getting quieter (it always gets quieter),
and I hope no one need understand this again.
Though, I wouldn’t want a choir to be the only ones hearing me either:
does someone finally being able to write about terror
help others sing? How do the confused gain a voice—an experience—
after so long?

I would like to tell you about the foxes that come to my garden now.
I think most of my friends just find it funny (though I try not to think so much, Mary).
She’d know why they were here—they turn up to guide me: I’m now open to thinking this.
And what’s more, a badger came the other night!
Below my window it was, rustling. Like it was doing a dance in the reeds!
I could do with cutting the reeds back, but for their sake, I won’t.
Although I doubt foxes and badgers ever dance off together?
Imagine it though! Can you picture it?
I’ve seen them both now, at least—I’ve experienced them.
And I do hope you can picture it.

Mary, did you know, I was the saddest boy in the world once,
and I didn’t even know it?
I didn’t feel the walls at all, even as a child—even as I ran
my fingers along the grit, not knowing, that right at those moments,
the walls were making themselves so difficult to push down—so painful.

And I’m sorry I found you annoying, even though
I’m sure you understand. And since I am apologising
and realising things, I wanted to ask: could you help me
with those that can’t sing? As I see many that don’t realise it yet:
they cannot sing or feel or think.
Of course, they are all OK (O Mary—
they are so beautiful and wonderful),
but there are many of them, and I’d like to help a little.

By the way, sometimes I talk to the animals now, you know.
Yes—I’m at that strange point: waving at foxes and badgers!
I might learn some plant names too, though
this is a big “might”, it not really being my thing.
But at least I can feel them now.

And you know, I cry when I want to now, as I am
able to cry, there being no question about where I’ll do it either:
in the dark; in the woods; down the street.
This feels very, very beautiful and wonderful at times, too, you know,
like it also does
to finally be able to feel, experience and understand poems—and you,
let alone myself.

I could sound very silly now (though it does feel good to say it,
and I don’t really care how I sound), but I’m sure the foxes
understand me
when they see me crying, and that they even appear
to nod at me, at times—in the woods, street,
dark—which, of course,
you understood and felt, too.

O Mary—and again, I am sorry.
But thank you.
Len Gurts On…

…the cashier’s eyes
saying everything: “Stella

and wet wipes. Is everything
alright?” But his voice

is cowardly: “Do…
Do you have a Clubcard?” “No

mate,” I say. “I don’t.
You see, I struggle with loyalty.”
Len Gurts’ Pointless Concept

The best poet
ever, but they
used a
template
with too many
line
breaks,
meaning they
never
had a sub-
mission
accepted.
Albert K. Ashes-Bury Is a Rock, an Island

When I leave the bar and the books I lie about
I see I am not here to be liked—to have friends.
I don’t want friends. Who has friends? Who wants to be liked?
I am only liked when I am nothing like I am, gifting them

what they want, not being the all that is rotten of me.
It isn’t human. It isn’t human to be simply rotten, or

disliked—or yourself: the pit of your bag of bones. We lie
about this—all our flaws; not authentically us. Being liked,

being nothing of yourself, having friends: that is
being human, and so false, and so flawed. But I am rotten and real and alone.
Albert K. Ashes-Bury Finds Work

Can you believe I’ve found employment
to bring myself back down? Obviously
to pay the rent too, but why am I bringing myself
back down? Probably because poetry doesn’t pay, though it does
take me away and I feel glorious
when it does, if aloof—if sentimental. I know I am more than a job, despite
how I feel this morning, with work
only being a means to… a means! But that only feels mean! Though at least I can still write
to get myself up, to start
my commute or just to feel
up, when I am able to, knowing
there’s no need to come down
when we’re able to. Though, do I need to be more grounded? Perhaps
I do, at least
as the new boy: I cannot fly into the office yet! But I can bounce
inside myself instead: I am allowed
to feel lifted. So I will skip along
my commute, sheepishly singing some
Astral Weeks, as unapologetically
poetic as I am. But I will have to brush my teeth
in the office on my first day
now, having spent
my morning writing this, having taken myself
up
and away again—having made myself late.
Albert K. Ashes-Bury’s Rough Sketch

I am building a straw man for my poetry
sitting on a hay bale in a field
pretending to enjoy the sun, while labourers
walk home from work measuring me—

pointing the finger; downing their beer—as I sketch them

building a straw man for my poetry
sitting on a hay bale in a field
pretending to enjoy the sun; while really
I am the scarecrow a long way from Kansas.
Albert K. Ashes-Bury Takes His Sweet Time

If I were a better man, I wouldn’t be
writing this, telling you
instead
that I have not known love
to exist and grow like this, that I never
knew what love could be, how it felt,
what it always singularly was; and I would
be telling you—selfishly, indeed—not
that I love you—because of course
I do—but
that you made me feel loved, seen, safe,
and so I now feel loved (I’d say it
over and over) even
whilst knowing
words, aren’t always meaningful, it being
wasted, that word (love), at times; but
I’d use it fine
and fully with you, as I feel
fine and full now, at times, mostly
when I think of you, mostly since I’ve known
you, whilst not truly knowing
where you came from (not here), what you
are, how this
all works, yet still knowing
you have come and it came, and it
works, whilst realising
I never knew it before, I never knew it
was this
in this capacity; and now, I just
feel it; and of course, I am
a better man for this, and due
to you; but, if only
I told you—if I only
you could read this.
Albert K. Ashes-Bury’s POWER

“What’s the bravest thing you ever did?
He spat in the road a bloody phlegm. Getting up this morning, he said.”
—Cormac McCarthy, The Road

Depersonalisation. Dissociation. Derealisation.
Anxiety. Depression. Suicidal ideation.
Delusions. Psychosis. Sleep disorder.
Substance abuse. Paranoia. Terror.

The little hiccups that some of us must face, eh!
And though

I’ve beaten those, the war
never stops, as I must now face

another battle: a headache!
But

to combat that
I think I’ll just cut my own head off

as it would only grow back.
Maxwell’s Poetry for Dummies (Laying It on Fik)

Why do you fink I am fik; in fact,
Why do I fink you are finking I am fik? Because
What even is it to be fik? Maybe
Just to write like this?

I do not listen to a single word anybody says.
I’ve read
All the books, all fik
In their own unique ways.

So why can’t I have my own fik book…?
I am
Hilarious though! And you can’t teach that; which may
Be the point? Which may be the only point! So

Doc, Prof, Teach,
Publisher: if you think my ilk
Be fik, most of us
Will give you a fik ear, while one or two

Will feel so pressed
Into the margins—will feel
So fikened—that you might
End up being taught a fing or two.

“Do you think I do these things for real?”
—Pulp, ‘I Spy’

“His accent sounded fine to me”
—Vampire Weekend, ‘Oxford Comma’
Maxwell Mumbling Again

Misanthropically-induced salted butter.
A superficial synonym for your concept and I’m in a bad mood.
Perpetual disorders seen but not heard over a lifetime.
It cannot possibly be connected to social justice.
I am writing this whilst frying eggs.
There’s no chance he’s thinking about it—nope.
Changing the pronoun because it cannot all be about me.
It means she didn’t start the fire but found another guy with a bloody holiday home. Git!
Reading the letters, a f f a i r, oblivious.
The correctional function on a theme of anti-climactic noise breaks.
Pushing the boat out.
Stopping.

Wait—one more one more!
Art isn’t smart but thinking makes you stupid.
Albert K. Ashes-Bury Riffs on “The Boy” Again

I really don’t know if I can write this at all.
I watched hundreds of them go past today, caught a few.
They were hideous, some of them. So many beings and sounds.
It has taken some time for this to come, and watching them go
is a death—it is a visit to the pearly gates: I was in the pub.
A man offered me a drink after a bit of chit chat. It felt too strong.
Where did I come from?
One of the ones I did capture felt too powerful. I knew it at the time
and knew to stop. Heaven knows where I would have gone
or how I survived it before, the barrage dragging me.
(Right now, I must caveat, someone I can no longer help
is going past too.)
I know it is stupid to even want this here, but this is me.
I have felt this person slipping around for years. They were disgusted in me
at times—still are. We are not sure what to say to each other. We are all not sure.
I felt the boy hanging at the door even at breakfast, the love of my life
seeing me, seeing me, seeing me, seeing me, seeing me,
and it makes me feel too much too, which is a shame, but I am so excited
with what comes. That is life?
I cannot think where the boy has been. I cannot. I cannot. I will not need to—
only I know he comes.
My legs grew when I was walking back—my whole body. It is not surprising.
But then these waves! And the rain! And my tears—they still sound
too pathetic to my ears and that makes me think and think.
I am happy to forget all this noted down, despite what I am doing.
(And her. That never? Or past?)
I feel sick with my arrogance and tentative claims of greatness. Most of it
I cannot mention—I will not see it again.
What if someone reads it? Where am I taking them?
This is nothing that I wanted to write, and I have learned
that’s a godsend: I listened. I want to remember nothing, but to enjoy
the love of a being under a roof, a drink, or under covers. No thinking.
I watched—and let—hundreds go past, and my boy walked in the room
and we cried together getting home on legs I’d never known.
Len Gurts Still Flames (He Doesn’t Know He’s the Bush)

And I’m just staring at this burning bush, yeah,
in its cage, bursting and flamed—but still

in its cage: it points and points
and it chews—studies the ancients

and patients—clunky degrees
and flames—still flames—still rages and spits.

And I can’t get close
to unlocking it.
Len Gurts at the Dentist, Perhaps

I am waiting. I do not want to.
If they remove the root from me it dies.

I feel fated by something I never would have chosen
(but I did! I am a piece of shit)

and it may be a curse or a tooth, as I still
hide deep deep truth, man; but

that all doesn’t matter, as I was called for
by something ontically beyond me, so I wait

acceptingly, at a push: send hot nurses.
Albert K. Ashes-Bury Episoding Again

This is just a little share, a little share to loosen my scenery
The music now comes so openly—I find full stops unnecessary
If I’d have written this in the moment I wouldn’t have been so analytic
But I do like the calmness of the library
After a share
The laugh behind me is what I never experienced
I have an expectation of eye contact, and I am multiple things
There are too many bodies to look at: O well
& there mustn’t be too many characters any more—not for much longer
My child is walking in the room; the babies learning to read
            must write
It is deliberate and a beautiful process, and no other word is required or fitting
I can now feel (here we go)
            the shivers and bubbles and waves coming to me
And it has been written in so many ways: I want to forget them all
But My God My God My God, I love that I am here
The technicality does not matter
I hate to stall matters, but eating now would stall this
One day, this will be blissfully unapparent
I hope she relives it too
So she no longer has to live in it
God I am becoming so loose; I think you might be me
            I think that might be why some don’t talk about it

When I feel it is right I will be released: I know it
Man, I know not to care at all about what they say and study
I wish this was every communication
As an aside, I don’t think greetings cards say anything
A simple thought, but the size of this Hula Hoop
            I now have these quiet moments
Since I am sharing, I think I’m in love with everyone poetically
            and I copied “&” for no reason
And since I am sharing, is there a way to say at all
            about how experience can so fundamentally change
            because I am so wide
Len Gurts Load of Shit

Look at this box of shit I have! Though
it fits well with all my other boxes of shit.

Can you see them all lined up in your head? How do they look?
Can you see how old some of them are?

This latest one though… Boy, it’s even got me saying
“boy.” And it’s a mega box of shit! But it’s also made me notice

my other boxes of shit, too! “Fuck!” I thought. “What a load
of shit I have!” So I am going to roundhouse kick them

off my shelf; which is risky: they won’t like it.
They’ll spray everywhere! But

fuck that shit! And I give thanks for this latest one
through gritted and shitted teeth.
Len Gurts Workshop

“How do you get good at it?” Well, that depends
on you, and how much of you
you are willing to lose. You see, I have styles
and voices, but when I try
with them, they aren’t as good, if we let good
be brash cocky spaceyquickman.
“What? Does spacy need an “e”?” See! That’s what
we are after, as people can write things
they aren’t about at all! But have you tried
pointing that out? They will say you are mad; they will talk
and talk without actually saying anything, so you must
be silent and have less compassion while I am going
all David Byrne with this kind of voice… But can you now
see how you need to stop listening? Else you will be awful at it;
just go on your own feel, at least for a bit.
And never, ever
ever have sex as if your mates are reading you either. That is the secret.
Len Gurts Being Watched By Me

I saw him across the room, scribing, in a blitz of metaphor.
We did not exist yet. This room did not exist. It never

needed to. “Are you sure?” I said to myself. But not
to him: I thought I could write the most incredible things too, but was it worth

the guilt? As I saw him slipping, the mania
dragging him along. I could say nothing; I could write

nothing about it, as nothing
can be said about such things, as it is not

the power but the talker
of it that gets people’s backs up. But I did want to say, “Leave!

Leave the library! Please! Put that pen down! Breathe!
While you let as much as you can go past

as you exit, else it may come true on a darker night.” But how cringe does that sound!
My own eyes roll. I looked at my own paper then: empty and safe.

But then what shall I do? What shall I do? What shall I do? What shall I do?
What shall I do? What shall I do? What shall I do? Because he is dying.
Albert K. Ashes-Bury Explores Imagery, Agency

“Violent use brings violent plans”
Metallica, ‘Welcome Home (Sanitarium)’

Everything I tried to love
stood me up against a wall
and fixed me there, locking
my shoulders in a brace, my arms
out in front of me with a typewriter
tied between my hands. They now
sit and giggle beneath me
about my dilemma, as I cannot
write about them nor can I crush
them with its weight: I am not able to drop it.
And while they relax
under me, they say
and do as they please. And while I remain
trapped here they’ll say and do
as they please
to me.

And I know I’m holding on to the wrong thing.
And so the stories grow and grow.
Maxwell’s Bullseye

“They’ll never forgive you but they won’t let you go (let me go!)”
—The Libertines, ‘Don’t Look Back Into The Sun’

“I’ve done some things that I shouldn’t have done
But I haven’t stopped loving you once”
—Arctic Monkeys, ‘The Ultra Cheese’

Everyone I have ever had to give a shit about doesn’t understand a word I’m saying; and if I could be honest
With them, I barely recognise myself either: I’m trying
To straddle what’s casual with a twinge
Of literary pretension; it means
I’m speaking to no one I’d really like to talk to, longing
Backwards for something mindless and intoxicating. Though don’t think me patronising. Be flattered.

I’m off out tonight to throw a stone hedgehog through a solicitor’s window
And to stand creepily close to people in nightclubs
While I stare, because as you can hear, I am bored
Here, it being

Too easy being a… sculptor… and I no longer require the therapeutic benefits
Of marble, instead missing the comfort to be found in the unpredictability of dysregulation
And abuse; which I now

Of course can mix with a lifetime of resentment
For what I could’ve won
To create these self-referential statues that I’ll be chiselling for the rest of one’s career.
Len Gurts Suffers (And Develops Awareness!)

I don’t want to write about it today, please.
Could I just leave it for once?
I want to be sparse. I feel sick with the writing.
I feel sick watching the writing come.

I think one day
this part of me will disappear
and I’ll enjoy someone else’s poems sometimes; but mostly

I’ll just be very content and quiet—in it—

perhaps smoking on my long board like this guy
out the window here

not needing to care about cadence—being heard.
Albert K. Ashes-Bury Doesn’t Drink for One Weekend

I have lost everyone, quite gladly,
because no one believes me

as the nights draw in, and the women
crawl in again and my mind

goes, “Whoosh!”—making another horror story, mystery—
surreal or paranoid spy thriller!—

perhaps a short poem about hope.

I have lost everyone, quite gladly,
because no one believes me; but

believe me: I will write something new
and true

and most beautiful, soon.
Albert K. Ashes-Bury’s River

I went to the wild river where I used to lie daily
and dripped my holy water in (I’d been crying).
Truthfully, I did this over a lifetime (I write well in advance) and the river
always bursts its banks. And at the bottom of it
is mud. So I jump in again caking myself in it.

There could have been another story now
about us rebuilding the banks together, but

that isn’t possible, there having been
no river
to start with
of course: I’d just been crying into her.

And I’m back here again filling it up.
Albert K. Ashes-Bury While Waiting for a Leaflet

What can you do to me now in this hospital? I am the greatest survivor
there has ever been, I am the strongest nutjob the world has ever seen and I am not
stopping—no way. It is sterile in here
and I am convulsing and crying, but if I wanted—if I wasn’t
a twinge worried of them thinking me still mad—I would start
a sing song on the ward: I am quite mad. Did you think this would be my end
in here? Did you think anything would happen other than me winning?
You didn’t bank on my pen, did you. You didn’t bet on my body
being an archetypal suit of armour or that I’d be harder
than anything you could do to it, even while it froze stiff
bearing your perverted shit, it only hibernating
temporarily, then smiling: I am not stopping. I am not stopping
my battles here until this war is won and you are dead
and dead and dead—eaten—and they’ll say
nothing more about you because I do chew quickly.
And I am not even angry yet! Imagine this, plus anger! No—
no I am writing this with a biscuit, waiting
for a leaflet while the nurse gets me a blanket, and I am spitting you out
while I’m lying here and smiling, because fuck me, you picked the wrong one, didn’t you.
Len Gurts on the Cupse

My edges can be your edges, you know?

I felt erased. I shed myself
further. I wrote another.

And what is a body?

I barely recognise who I am anymore, having
developed a habit
of dragging huge mirrors into fields, laying them

on the floor as I stand
in the middle, reflecting up

my edges only sky.
Len Gurts Freud Yeah Cool Dude

Can you feel it yet? Can he?

O he feels it, somewhere, he just

hasn’t admitted to it yet. But

it’s really why

he’s with you: a motherfucker

like me.
Maxwell Can’t Read Most Days

“Your perceptions,
Like rays of sunlight, emanating
From a great central contemplation,
Pierce every fallacy.—And yet
You say you had no education?”
—Herr Von Eberkopf to Peer Gynt, Henrik Isben, Peer Gynt

Most days I cannot read and no one can take that away from me.
“But if you don’t read, how can you write?” Because I am a child
Or dumb—who gives a fuck. I hadn’t read one thing
About me until I wrote it: characters didn’t feel terrible enough; no one
Was feral and wild or swearing at librarians
Because no one made art a solace for us: we just acted
Like cunts. Now when I read some poets

They make cuntery OK. Maybe I felt judged
By the wrong people—who knows: it’s like something else
Didn’t want me in the library or someone else
Didn’t want me expressing myself or like
It’s all nothing to do with intelligence or effort
Or being well read, like dumb rats
Can do it too? And who called me a dumb rat? Me. “So why can’t you read most days?” You.
Albert K. Ashes-Bury’s Plans for the Future

Sighing
and saying, “Ah, [your name]: you fool!”
Len Gurts Scratches Further

If they only didn’t believe
that it has to be metaphysical

they may accept
the ghouls that come in to me

at night, sometimes still,
though I cannot remember them being made.

That might not be mine: my ancestors
might have fell from

a high building. How should I know?
How should I know

what I feel?
Sometimes I hear sonnets

having never read them.
Sometimes I am vague and that is enough.

I just want to get rid of the ghouls, Doc.
Let me write something down—I’ll make it up.
Maxwell Explaining How It Works (For Now)

“If you think it pays to fool him then fool him. Who will be the loser? If you think he can help you, and not yourself, then stick to him until you rot.”
—Henry Miller, Sexus

It has to be said, that some therapists
Can make good muses, because why
Go to therapy yourself, when cases
Will pay to come to you? And now
We’ve understood this, us
“Clients”
Can turn up to therapy feigning powerlessness, only
Armed with a secret pen
Or paintbrush, and we can subtly
Capture the therapist’s gaps. So it’s like a very expensive
Life drawing class! Though
It could actually be a bargain: take your worst self
Along with you, and the therapist
Will throw their insides—unawares—out
On to you, in turn providing you with content
For life; only you might then leave
With some of their baggage too, which means you
Won’t be the one left feeling better (but you will
Have loads of poetry). And then you’ll look around
Outside after? And there were actually no teachers anyway!
There never has been! It was a completely
Unregulated class! Such an abstract
Exercise. Well you wrote it! And my o my: so I did! Thanks
For pointing that out to me! Normality restored, the “patient”
Can then disappear, allowing the therapist’s
Career to flourish, while they’ll have attained
New knowledge of who they can’t support
Also, because don’t we make them cross: terrible! Though aren’t
We fascinating cases too! In the meantime
The “clients” and “classes” can run themselves
Into the ground.
Maxwell Asked For My Help

You must at least let my words be out of control
Sometimes, on paper, in speech,
Else I’m not sure what I could do:
I have seen silenced lambs and caged dogs—
Tongueless messiahs with no ink. You
Must let me be wild in thought, perhaps then
With words, as I get it wrong and get it wrong
And wrong so I can draft myself—improve. You must let me move
Out of myself, all of my selves
Needing your allowances
In this world—ours—if you want to change it; else
I could eat it—break it all——I could be
So thoughtless; only
Let me bring out my worst
Me to control this
In me, as I can be
Many things: I am still not sure
What some of them could do, as I need to explore, having had
No voice or art early; so I remain
Hungry and I could be
Almost careless with my appetite
If you do not let me purge, somewhat
What you may not like to hear, allowing me
To be gross with my hands
Up, your own hands
And pens out, off the page, your own thoughts
And words willing to share
This world with me, while I am mindless, out of control
Trying to keep myself in it. You
Must let me speak
My mind, at times, on your time—on
Each others—so we can tackle the powers above us; else
Forget what I say: I’m not sure what I’d be capable of
If I could not speak—express myself; so

Please, at least
Sometimes, let my words be out of control wrong
So I can move through and away from them, and
With that, change your world, you spoilt pri- (hence
He asked for my help).
Albert K. Ashes-Bury With Himself

I don’t want to die but I don’t want to feel
like I want to either. When I forget the latter exists
within me too, I disappear out of myself
no world or experience only sitting here
numb, mindless, the shutting down
safer than the not wanting. I am nowhere.
I’ll have to come back to those cross roads
again edge a bit further into wanting, then
feeling then out, disappearing
then within and nowhere else but here with myself.
Len Gurts! Call Me

Look what I did with my love for them!
I passed them through the eye of a needle

in a poem. I went mad believing I was Him.
I then caught them cringing at my love

and poetry so I walked out leaving them
trapped in that big empty house

thinking me mad.
Len Gurts High Art

Museum. Paintings.
Behind glass; in frames. Then
the walls they cling to. The foundations of these buildings.
The cleaner with his mop. The tannoy: bliss.
The rain on the roof. Sorry—
the entrance lobby; the child running:
I would love to give him a pen. Free rein.
My wispy thoughts. My old coat, stained.
My stained heart? Yuk. I am careless
but in love with something, perhaps—
it sounds like it.
The point I was getting to
now—O yes: whatever we look at
next; I am ever so away.
Maxwell’s Seductive Theory

“Keep a boundary from all toxicity!” But Doc—if that
Is your real name—it only bangs against our windows again
Eventually. Gosh I am sorry! This should have come
With a content warning: I plan to do that thing where you throw the baby
Into the pool on their own so they learn
To naturally float up by themselves (but I will test
The water and hug them after). Now here’s

The twist: I have totally dived in
The toxic water and guess whose reflection
Stares back at me? Doc! Relax! I’m taking responsibility!
And I also forgot to mention
That the screen you thought you were talking to me through
Is not a window either; so shut the fuck up
And get in the pool and teach those drowning how to swim.
Albert K. Ashes-Bury Et Tu?

“O he’s mad! He’s wild!
You don’t know what he’s like!” I agree!

As he’s lying on the floor
full of bullets
saying “love”.
Len Gurts’ Edgy Backflash

I was experienced until I watched it
one final time sober, alone, animated, prohibited,
untoughened. The gravedigger came: I was so jealous.
I took us both out of the ground, changed
the players around. Now you should see my dancing, as if
any of the final times mattered: I have been someone
else’s fool, always. But I was only playing:

I kept quiet and smiled and lived as every myth
dragging myself through the quivering stages
inducing climaxes unapologetically, role played
and too greedily ahead of myself. No I was not
playing: I had been played. Now I leave characters
in basic sonnets. Now you can be played. But
be warned: this is not the experience.
Len Gurts Works Harder

Even in the depths of my “despair” and “pain”
(I am so distant again. I exist bitterly today
in other social poetries) I absolutely love it, this world,
this mirror: try and touch me haha. Psychosis flirts;
Jesus comes in the mirror saying, Not by
the hairs of my… I don’t know why. I cry
and think of nursery rhymes. Why would anyone

leave me? Did I ruin the plan? Was I wrong
to chew the bullets? These “bullies”—these tricks
of syntax: they do not touch me. And if I can be
more poetic it’s just that I scream and cry at the horrors
as I smile next to them—I reassure myself—
it is not a mask but a human. And it is… it is…
a beauty—birthing—breaking down its own placenta.
Len Gurts to Lose More Friends Ergh

On top of the storm! On top of the world!
The wind beneath me—I am reacting to that
only. Does anyone notice? I am unquestioned
up here—look at all the peasants

down there—it’s a good job I have money
and blind sex. Am I happy?
Did I not tell you about asking questions?

Friends have fallen through the wind—yes.
This has nothing to do with me—
my storm is my world is my vacuum—

as if anyone could notice—they are repeating
themselves

whilst I am back up there. Here, God. Look look.

Fine. Don’t.
The…

So what—I am feeling rather tentative—
does anyone have a category? Thank you—

please all listen to my category
up here—it is very important. You don’t know what this is like
for me
down here. Look look. God?

Oh my god! You are all not looking! You pigs!—
you wolves! There has never been a storm
like this! My friends? They are dying! Are you
even listening? Do you think you have all the answers?

So I am now falling
then. How do you sleep?—fair weather
friends, as I have
no language for it—we need
more categories—block out the upper badness

in the toxic storms
that repeat the same things ergh.