from ‘angel tantrum’ / consumptions, dear ethel cain, & a sacrifice

CONSUMPTIONS

The turtle dreams of strangulation in a green emptiness

A star is the graverobber of god

I texted the writers not all of them

Writing is sometimes being drunk while putting a mouse back together in a mountain

We can kiss here
is an eyepatch
for your moon
tattoo

I don’t know why anyone would want to see anything

What if his son
stayed put

~~~

sacrifice 1

Heaven lasts as long as the dreams you show up in on earth. Dying is the insufficient décor of an offscreen world. Mary had a stalker.

~~~

LETTER 16

Dear Ethel Cain

I sleep in the sleep I’ll die in. My heartbeat says too soon, too soon. A hand on god’s eyelid. Nothing.

LETTER 17

Dear Ethel Cain

They are moving the body from star to star when a landmine made in a dot of blood yawns arisen somewhere in the white acre of my poet friend’s eye. Needing a past, my sister lets a snake eat her entire stomach. Father invents in the grey cinema a remote for loneliness. My friend becomes an angel obsessed with redhaired dolls. My father leaves the cinema wearing nothing but a seashell and spends the rest of his life dreaming of a doorbell that tracks decay. Three mothers we can’t place leave together for a nightmare where a fetus bounces into the back of an out of control pick-up truck. I keep changing what my mouth holds, but it all fits.

LETTER 18

Dear Ethel Cain

They pronounced my name correctly then killed my children. A shredded angel brought to god the blue arms of Ohio lightning. For too long, an infant heard itself think. God outlasted imagery. And gender, god.

~~~~~~~

The above are all from my newest self-published collection angel tantrum.

All of my self-published collections are 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. 

Each can be purchased via: 
paypal (bartsmock@gmail.com)
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Zelle bartonsmock@yahoo.com

angel tantrum
published April 2025

the crow's book of wrists
published August 2024

57 letters to Ethan Hawke or I wanted to stop saying god
published August 2024

naked in dog years
published April 2024

apartures
published January 2023

deer as permission to die in Ohio
published April 2023

blood to bathe us in its blue past
published May 2022

untouched in the capital of soon
published September 2021

rocks have the softest shadows
published December 2020