TELL 5PM IT'S GOD SOMEWHERE
poems, Barton Smock
125 pages
October 2025
cover image by Noah Michael Smock
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A reading, 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 don’t remember anything I write. Sometimes people I know die. An image faints inside an eye. They made that bomb to know a guy. Know I die.
Death learns one language then praises my dumb song. I miss your mom. My whales are not real. Music gets lost all the time. It’s my farness that’s gone.
I am as lonely
as a clue
as a kitten
coughing
near a suicide
note
Our son’s name is mispronounced
by god
We shorten
everything
Death weighs
itself
in an app
genitalia 16
A boneless deer in the dream resistant stomach of an angel
The mouth
model
for the loneliest
mouth
award
The single-use hand of god the boy
Shape’s collection of entry
forms
I am looking
in this photo
for the grave
of my eye
Barren is the doll of my drinking
A star
learns
the names
of flowers
In pen I write
youngly
on my sneakers
dialogues
for my abusers
Mousetrap, megachurch
Babies hear themselves born
genitalia 15
A cricket listening for god
The longing
of the ocean
to lie
down
The plain search history of our saddest child
Father’s
job
younger
younger
God the next
cricket
time
can't stop
a movie
I pressed
my body
for answers
no
for no
reason
I sometimes touch a very blue nowhere
Not with myself
Mom
I take it back
The loneliness
genitalia 14
Noon, moon, none. Time loses itself in the drone company’s rabbit hole of plainness. Touch reaches an age. Love no one.
kingsoftrain 