from ‘the crow’s book of wrists’ (self published August 2024)

From the crow’s book of wrists (self published August 2024):


GOD THE CANARY OF NOTHING

Light’s
egglike
silence
Rock
paper
infant
Infant
omen
hair


A CHILD FALLS OUT OF GOD

A scrape of my tongue

for an empty
anxious
dog
licking your wrist
in a room
painted trap

door blue


A CHILD FALLS OUT OF GOD

No aliens
after all.

Just us
seeing
if we've died.

My son's
laugh
might
be a seizure.

Some say the crow

some
say buzzard.

The exact
bomb

cannot matter.


BLACK MOUSE MACHINE
for Mark Lanegan

Snow grief
and star
grief

so rarely
die

during the removal
of thunder's
stomach

that I thought
twice
and killed
with no help
from god
a red

fly
on a blue
train


HOPE MACHINE

You liked
a song
and people
died.

Art doesn't exist.

The world's
not old.


LISTENING MACHINE

Water
with its broken blue bones.

The most
private
newborn.

Teeth whitener
and god.

The dryer's ribs.


LOST CHILD MACHINE

Lost
lost child
machine


PROGNOSIS MACHINE

Distance in its little house
longer
than expected


NOSTALGIA MACHINE

It’s over.

God 
gets a message 
from god.


WRONG AFTERLIFE MACHINE

I do a search for images of babies born without ribs and I don’t see what I want. An article scares me in 1983. Saying that thirst is hunger’s blue ghost is the same as wanting thunderstorm to be a strong password. I’m not on fire but my son is sick all the time. In my nightmare of plenty, sea creatures for the skinning of god pretend they’ve kept god young. A dead angel weighs more the more the news of its death is shared. Is this a love song? Sexting in the sex shop, no two phones can cry like me. Vexations pin the ghost spot where you cloned a sighing bee. Touch touches its exile and my stomach slurs like speech. Positionless you dial theft bereft of any thief. Yes and no. Yes and no. The angel is dead. Dead over here.


SPIDER MACHINE

I grew a spider
in a lightbulb
it came
all this way
to shrivel
in worship
before a picture
of my mother
at nineteen
thinking
of her sister
her sister
her sister
I had two dreams
two different
uncles
they both
drank
and cried
one wanted
me to see
his haircut
the other
wanted 
his daughter
to stop
dying
anyway
the un
identified
body
is a body
so police
that
police it
until it kills
itself
on a budget
from 1981
I did
not eat
today
my poor
uncles
her sister
and
my 
mom


SAD HAND MACHINE

fish
fishing
for grief
idk
I always
cried
near spiders
so made
to display
their hunger


BECAUSE IN HEAVEN A GHOST

would die
of ceaseless
immediacy

~~~~~

The Crow's Book of Wrists, 193 pages
August 2024
can be purchased via paypal (bartsmock@gmail.com)
or Venmo @Barton-Smock-2
or CashApp $BartonSmock
or Zelle bartonsmock@yahoo.com