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November 7, 2026 / barton smock

words toward Philip Schaefer’s ‘Pagan Era’ (Barrow Street Press, 2026)

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Pagan Era
Philip Schaefer
Barrow Street Press, 2026

I died knowing I wanted to read these poems. If my children were here when I got here, the heretic pyrotechnics of Philip Schaefer’s ‘Pagan Era’ were invisibly ashing out spectacle on the casts of their unsigned arms. I’m not sure if my mind can keep up. What before is name named after? Image gets there in the ghost math of the second that god leaves uncounted. Retracing a thing to its end, Schaefer’s verse is an abandonesque of donated exile. There are twins asleep in the stomach of a plastic doll. Use your hand. Ask it in the dark code of your mouth what the plural is of hands.
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