{edits, recent and not so, &}

recent poems:

[rations]

sons
gather facts
for loss
and sons
gather facts
for loss

~

[breather]

infant, the sooner
than expected
search
for god.

I have this baby I’m not afraid to use.

you pretend to shoot
and I’ll pretend
to fall. we’ll make a day

of never talking.

the missing crow of thorns.

~

[swimmer of the blue snow]

a bowl of soup bleeds to death
in the eatery
of my praying
hands

~

[exit wound]

coming up
we are
with names
for time
machines

~

[dream]

I am with my wife and son and we are drinking from the shell of a turtle a soup the locals use to dilute a rain’s grief. I kind of know that something bad is going to happen to both twins. my wife is looking for a wheelchair and then for a place to hide it. my son is saying grace in the only spot he’ll ever be. some of his white pills turn blue as a laugh track denies three times the thunder’s loss.

/ barn etiquette. the rabbit

the volcano’s
dove.

~

[no after]

and what would you have me imagine? a change of tense in a tale of abuse. a baby licking the palm of a doll. a spoon. a robot’s broken arm. a chalk outline of a worm. hunger’s tacklebox. our allergic sister’s suicide note. a calf eating its first canary.

~

[forgets]

the nude’s failure to stay awake in a laundromat. the suicide of the copycat toddler. nine types of catfish. a worm’s tongue. god’s last name. the orphan’s timekiller.

~

older poems:

[possum & moth]

dad is trying to load bullets into a flashlight. his tv show is having trouble sleeping. mom wants us to drink the water while it’s hot. myself I’ve heard horror stories about pissing in the baby pool. I tell my brother having a fever is alot like giving god a blowjob. sister opens the oven for a doll she thought would be taller. we like you but not when you’re lonely.

~

[On my father being gay]

a crow
born inside
a footstep
is passing
for dark

~

[plain sight]

a hearse emerging from the shadow of a school bus

/ a mother
trying
to return
a baptized
mannequin

/ that poorly
lit
bait shop
star

~

newest self-publication:

~hick lore rabbit hole~

~poems, barton smock, 124 pages, 9.00
~October 2016

available here:
http://www.lulu.com/shop/barton-smock/hick-lore-rabbit-hole/paperback/product-22914385.html

/

book preview on site is book entire

free hard copy to those interested in writing a review, make request to bartonsmock@yahoo.com

/

*note: currently, all Lulu print books are 20% off with coupon code of SAVVYREADER