TELL 5PM IT'S GOD SOMEWHERE
poems, Barton Smock
125 pages
October 2025
cover image by Noah Michael 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:
paypal (bartsmock@gmail.com)
Venmo @Barton-Smock-2
CashApp $BartonSmock
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.”
genitalia 8
In the castration
dreams
of bewildered
angels
or in the surveillance
dreams
of the unaroused
might one
pick up smoking
yes
to empty
the wrist of god
genitalia 7
a grey
lightbulb
for a lost
moth
Moms don't die this way.
The poem is easy to read.
genitalia 6
thoughtless
star
unmoved
by the newborn's
lifetime
of regret
genitalia 5
In this grunting spectacle
of machines
that go
nowhere
I cannot
put my mouth
on the animal that’s having my memories
Later,
God with death’s
perfect baby
genitalia 4
In my brother
a child
asks
for a child
hoodless
boy
Later,
there is no
future
in being
the surgeon
of an angel
Lately I touch
with yours
my subscription
to pain, I love
my children too much
to be a good father
This doesn’t even go here
Imagine finishing a poem about debt
God’s
genitalia 3
A man can be seen sitting on the roof of his mother’s house. He has a gun, or a stick, and some say they can hear a baby crying. I am the man’s most quiet brother. A cop talks to my brother from below and is pointing at my brother’s dog and is telling my brother that we are all going to count to three and the dog will die. My brother screams it isn’t his dog. The dog looks hurt. I think by this.
genitalia 2
In the dream
they shove an egg
down my pants
and start
punching
Later,
I keep my jeans on
Swim
to the lake’s
middle
genitalia 1
In the garden
the tree
of hair
Later,
god up
at night
There’s nothing to do
in this unicorn
kingsoftrain 