Skip to content
November 26, 2021 / barton smock

halfmost

In the hips there is a knowing that water is made of patience.

I am still creating a god 

that's hard 
to look at 
November 26, 2021 / barton smock

snowmost

Death introduces again

its slow 
teacher

-

Reading a poem
fixes only
the poem

-

The past runs on a loop

-

Love
out of nowhere 

windows

November 24, 2021 / barton smock

bodymost

In a game of telephone they've trapped a starstruck loneliness. My amen and your amen need the same light

switch. Our sick son knows we can't be from the future.
November 23, 2021 / barton smock

hypnosis for clumsy gods

in Ohio a blinking fog no older than a bandaged deer leaves in a hospital a hole might the angel need previously more than the nothing it learns at a spelling bee that never ends
November 22, 2021 / barton smock

older cities, from ‘untouched in the capital of soon’

city 121

My memory isn't what it will be.

Povertavoid, avidsad, handbefore. 

She wants a flowermysonisdead.

*

city 122

We get our thunder from snow's dream.

A baby
invents
kneeling

with a fork and an outlet.

The wind is slowly eaten
by what

*

city 123

There's not much to know, really.

The puppeteer sleeps all day
and the fisherman
all night.

Hide your hair in your mouth.

*

city 124

Pop-up books about sleep.
The rabbitwater ocean.

No one is the one keeping god alive.
November 22, 2021 / barton smock

self, selfsame

So, my brother Noah Smock wrote the below kindness about me a few months ago, in regards to my poem SOONISMS being featured at Poem-A-Day, and I said thank you and cried to myself and to others but meant also to put it somewhere for good.

Also, please check out the work he does for the Baltimore Community Toolbank HERE

~



What Barton says about this piece: 'I hand-wrote this poem on a small piece of paper while worrying about the long and short lives of my children.'

Barton has been writing and putting in work as a self-published author for years. He has built an audience when and where he can. He's done so around a *few* other commitments (namely working full-time and being an  incredible, committed, engaged father of four). 

My brother is also the biggest supporter of anything I've ever done. He regularly donates to the organization I commit myself to daily. He shares any victory of his brothers broadly. He is kind and giving and only curses when he's cooking or driving. My life's pursuit is to make him laugh so hard he falls to the floor.

This little story is the perfect description of who he is: 

When he was eight, his younger brothers wanted to play king of the mountain on a dirt pile located at a construction site near our housing complex. It was the 80s. Construction sites were playgrounds of endless possibility. 

But on this day, Older Boys were already playing on the 'mountain' we wanted. So as the oldest, Bart was nominated to Go Talk To Them. I don't know what was said, but an arrangement was made: Yes, we could play on the mountain *if* Bart let one of the Older Boys punch him in the stomach. 

So Bart looked briefly back at us, then stiffened his gut to accept a single blow below the ribs. He hobbled back to us, holding his stomach. Through clenched teeth he said, 'You guys can play. I'll be right there.'

poem is HERE

November 19, 2021 / barton smock

parentmost

An oven too small to be left on.

An ear that makes an animal-sized hiccup.

A bidding war started by god for the children of our unprotected hypnosis.

A miniature loneliness.
An error-free nothing.
November 17, 2021 / barton smock

2015, visions, edits & spacing

[ABSENCE VISION]

wherein the white soup of thought that could not sustain the brainless pilot of paper airplanes was drawn from my son’s unheard ear might memory attend

foresight, the church of loss

[CITY VISION]

Downloading the horror movie that shows your penis

takes
a long time
in the city.

Others
are a grief
I came alive
to miss.

[MOB VISION]

soon is a baby studied by the scholars of now who in their prime predicted

that jesus
would be
in the scarecrow’s
future
the darkest
bird

[GIST VISION]

I woke up in the tree again

The house itself
had left
run
once more
the crucifixion
on tv

November 16, 2021 / barton smock

time differences

Today for a good seven minutes I couldn't remember the name of my son's disorder.

In dollhouse hell

an eye
used a clock.

I left myself a stone with feathers.
November 16, 2021 / barton smock

westmost

I started to care about form.

Sleep 
could not sleep.

One brother turned more blue than the other.

I drank myself into three gods
but didn't 
ask.

It was late and then it was now.