{hid}

some recent:

~

[meditations on absence]

the ransom note
in suicide’s
dream journal

the ghost of the brainwashed rocking chair

fingers
teeth
who’s keeping
score

~

[meditations on depth]

the mouth
of the thing
that eats
in fog
a doll’s
head

–

the holy spirit
high
on the bricklayer’s
toothache

–

a cat person
at death’s
door

–

poverty

a belonging
moved
by many
mirrors

~

[keep]

the laziness animals have, that kind of panicked longing…

and brevity, the faith
of insects

–

my shadow, of course, afraid of its borrowed blood

–

that barn
in the middle of nowhere’s haunted eyesight

–

the invisible
after-hours
birth, and the woman

who keeps the baby
despite
its perfection

–

this quiet in the redneck’s
library
of forgiveness, this thunder…

–

the agony of the boomerang’s maker

~

[the exact]

father became the man his possession foreshadowed. mom had a purse full of spoons. brother bathed any form quiet enough to make the kitchen sink. I began to believe. I began to hear in the rock

the thorn
it spoke for. over the nest of a bird,

the nothing to eat.

~

[brainiac]

days before comet

I bite my tongue
this close
to a worm

~

[exonerator]

a man goes unmolested into the knowledge of his body. has one hand had no choice. puts a doll in a carseat. makes his boy watch. a man recoils mid-dream

from a caterpillar. I am

what I’m
again.

~

[untitled]

I jumped from a tree seven times
trying to break
my arm.

which arm
by morning
remembered.

/ a virgin
doesn’t really see
his last
scarecrow.

/ if you open a pack of diapers
and some
are black / I have

four kids.

I dream
every night
one
goes missing

which means
by morning
the three
from the dream…

~

[climax]

the cigarette
the worrier’s
flashlight

the past
a widow…

deserted childhood, electric eel.

if poor
put mouth
where mouth
is

~

[angel ear]

writing again
in longhand

about what
a lover’s

lung?

bike repair

my problems
with mice

~

newest self published poetry collection:

MOON Tattoo
http://www.lulu.com/shop/barton-smock/moon-tattoo/paperback/product-22634440.html

there is also this:

http://www.dinkpress.com/store/infant-cinema-by-barton-smock