UNKILLABLE ANGEL GOES TO THE CINEMA
poems, Barton Smock
185 pages (hardcover)
September 2026
back cover image by Aidan Smock
in-book illustrations and photographs by
Noah Michael Smock
Jude Smock
Mary Ann Gutierrez
Aidan Smock
Collection is pay-what-you-want. Be sure to include your name/address details in the comment section of payment type. Email bartonsmock@yahoo.com for free PDF if interested in reviewing.
can be purchased via:
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A reading is HERE
Some words toward it by the holy poet and person Mick Parsons are HERE
6 broken bones, a short film inspired by my collection (57 Letters to Ethan Hawke)
Filmed, selected, and edited by my son Aidan Smock.
Selected by and starring my son Noah Michael Smock.
Selected works from the book:
Letter 071224
Dear Ethan Hawke
In Ohio there is a black frog with a star on its back that no one has ever seen. Men trip each other to death.
Letter 062224
Dear Ethan Hawke
I deleted this letter. This is the new one.
Letter 072324 someone smuggled a bone into heaven
Dear Ethan Hawke
Someone smuggled a bone into heaven.
Letter 062824 voiceovers
Dear Ethan Hawke
Nothing creation makes is as ghostless as a baby. If a being needs rest, then a being can get sick, get better, be killed. Pain keeps the body in the past. I drink in the present.
Letter 071724
Dear Ethan Hawke
I feel I’ve been in the room where I’ll die. My little nod to a flower is god at this hour.
Letter 072524
Dear Ethan Hawke
I am sitting on a diving board with a rabbit in my lap. Most of the rabbit is dead. I try with my shadow to moan through the water. A stillness stretches god.
~
Book info HERE
Rate the film on letterboxd HERE
I have all the words that have gone missing to say that I am thankful for being in the August 2021 run of Poem-A-Day at poets.org as guest edited by Kazim Ali
Read the poem here
about the poem:
“I can't speak for all fathers, but my own fathering is littered with necessary and fake finalities. As such, I wrote this poem by hand on a small piece of paper while worrying about the long and short lives of my children. In the spacing of the poem, I tried to honor the little room I'd given myself for its projected concerns.”
I say, still, that birth is the face we make at god.
Don’t eat
before swimming
alone. Don’t
swim. Don’t
get sober
near water. Near Ohio. Oh
glacier. The number of babies
in his mouth.
https://www.colophont.com/post/cmw82sec1000a07l8eq6aujhv
From what we’ve gathered
it’s me
that I touch
in a stone
Birth is the shape of worry
The body knows
of itself
being small
God was in a star telling a little angel to die on a spider and you were losing your child to the teachings of an incurably resurrected contortionist
Fire is the town of fire fire dreams to mourn
Cricket, brain, magic
The light
up to
the light
The sound of god vomiting
I don’t care about stars
In the beginning the angels all gave birth at the same time to babies that knew how to fight and Eden was the biggest place they could think of. You are the only record of your non-existence. Curate your alienations. Angels give each other haircuts that don’t burn.
take this image home with you
before I see it
My children
longer and longer
look
the same
never see
says ghost
shadow die
recently,
a snake collector obsessed with surgical scars
took three photos of god
and three
photos
from. Online
goes online
remember
Heating a baby’s tooth in a spoonful of blood
don’t know
what god eats
how long
it should last
The meal
Only after Eve loses the child
does Adam
find God
