(CALL)

(on February 5th, I am planning to send hard copies of my newest publication ~earth is part earth and there’s a hole in the sound I made you from~ to those willing to read it and to those willing to either say something about it or keep quiet. if you are one of the first five individuals to send me a message with an address of where you’d like to receive it, I’ll include you as one of the individuals on the February 5th mailing.  requests can be made to bartonsmock@yahoo.com)

here are some poems from the book:

–

[from the book of waiting]

what is it
dissolves
in the mother’s
foreseeable
presence?

faith
a flashback
god
is having.

–

[voice]

sex as something that has an end.

evidence of god
provided
to beings
of proof.

I will offer that I had children
because I myself
could not
shun
authority. post-harm

pick a word
you’ve heard
me say.

–

[trick blood]

the bottle takes what it can from the baby’s mouth. the stirring motion delivered to the hands of a misfit prophet. the knowledge of my father’s people that god is too old of a lover to get satan’s attention. the silence my mother kept quiet for. the second afterlife of a single breast.

–

[male music]

in the creek of tomato silence
where my father saw
what it was
god
could not eat
there lives
a tiny whale
fooled
by emptiness