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August 23, 2021 / barton smock

Poem-A-Day at poets.org

I have all the words that have gone missing to say that I am thankful for being in the August 2021 run of Poem-A-Day at poets.org as guest edited by Kazim Ali

Read the poem here

about the poem:

“I can't speak for all fathers, but my own fathering is littered with necessary and fake finalities. As such, I wrote this poem by hand on a small piece of paper while worrying about the long and short lives of my children. In the spacing of the poem, I tried to honor the little room I'd given myself for its projected concerns.”

August 21, 2021 / barton smock

city,

city 126

I can't be around people who know how to swim. It's not, I know, the best way to start a city. God wants to be alive all the time. Everything in my body is recent.
 

August 20, 2021 / barton smock

city,

city 125

The loneliness they hide in window cleaner. The horse, the puppy, the two churches of thought on thirst. You with your son and maybe a meal. Snowfork. Snowspoon. Every past to become a future he's not in.  

August 18, 2021 / barton smock

\ 2016 & some former cities

FROM 2016

[to all]

there is a god
but you’ve more
than one
birthplace



[rations]

sons
gather facts
for loss
and sons
gather facts
for loss



[swimmer of the blue snow]

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

~

SOME FORMER CITIES:

*

city 13

God wasn't there when image called off its search

*

city 14

A photo
eats better
than a mirror

*

city 21

Future is the part of the snake the astronauts eat last.

*

city 22

Sometimes there is no city because everyone is alive.

*

city 50

We picked flowers and the elevators stopped

*

city 51

Some days
see us

Twice 

*

city 52

I could've been so young

*
August 18, 2021 / barton smock

city,

city 124

Pop-up books about sleep.
The rabbitwater ocean.

No one is the one keeping god alive.
August 15, 2021 / barton smock

city,

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.

August 14, 2021 / barton smock

city,

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
August 13, 2021 / barton smock

movie list 2020

Late with this. Things were kind of happening last year.

Saw 238 movies last year, 193 of them were new (to me)

Top 10 were: Parasite, If Beale Street Could Talk, Uncut Gems, The Swerve, Mickey and the Bear, I'm Thinking of Ending Things, Honey Boy, Babyteeth, Waves, and His House.

~

Total list, with rating beside:


Parasite	98.41 
If Beale Street Could Talk	98.41 

Uncut Gems	96.83 
Swerve, The	96.83 

Mickey and the Bear	95.24 
I'm Thinking Of Ending Things	95.24 

Honey Boy	93.65 
Babyteeth	93.65 

Waves	92.06 
His House	92.06 

Giant, The	91.27 

Horse Girl	88.10 
Queen and Slim	88.10 

Painter and the Thief, The	87.30 
And Then I Go	87.30 
13th	87.30 

Hale County This Morning, This Evening	86.51 
Assistant, The	86.51 
She Dies Tomorrow	86.51 
Devil All The Time, The	86.51 
Memories of Murder	86.51 
Nest, The	86.51 
Black Bear	86.51 
Kajillionaire	86.51 

End Of Sentence	85.71 

Premature	84.92 
Blood On Her Name	84.92 
Relic	84.92 
Possessor	84.92 

Dark and The Wicked, The	83.33 
Burning Cane	83.33 

Way Back, The (2020)	82.54 
I, Tonya	82.54 
Cold War	82.54 
Mary Magdalene	82.54 
Palm Springs	82.54 
Welcome To Chechnya	82.54 
Sputnik	82.54 
Wade In The Water	82.54 

Knives Out	81.75 
Little Women (2019)	81.75 
Lodge, The	81.75 
Wolf of Snow Hollow	81.75 

Swallow	80.95 

Grand Budapest Hotel	80.16 
Vast of Night, The	80.16 
American Animals	80.16 
Double Hour, The	80.16 
Shithouse	80.16 
Totally Under Control	80.16 
Light From Light	80.16 
Midnight Sky, The	80.16 

Don't Worry, He Won't Get Far On Foot	79.37 
Jungleland	79.37 

Dark Waters	78.57 
Other Lamb, The	78.57 
Thin Blue Line, The	78.57 
I'm Your Woman	78.57 

Ordinary Love	77.78 
Deerskin	77.78 
Wake In Fright	77.78 

Birds of Prey	76.98 
Vivarium	76.98 
Gretel and Hansel	76.98 
A Good Woman Is Hard To Find	76.98 
Rental, The	76.98 
Save Yourselves!	76.98 
Borat Subsequent Moviefilm	76.98 
Racer and the Jailbird	76.98 

Age Out	76.19 

Immigrant, The	75.40 
Amulet	75.40 
Spinster	75.40 
Miss Stevens	75.40 

Banana Split	74.60 
Judy & Punch	74.60 
I Remember You	74.60 
Spontaneous	74.60 

Sweet Virginia	73.81 
Come To Daddy	73.81 
A Beautiful Mind	73.81 

Baby Driver	73.02 
Hounds of Love	73.02 
Hunter Hunter	73.02 

Doctor Sleep	72.22 
Head Hunter, The	72.22 
Chemical Hearts	72.22 
Creep 2	72.22 
Adrift	72.22 
Anything For Jackson	72.22 
Soul	72.22 
Minor Premise	72.22 

Hustlers	71.43 
Color Out of Space	71.43 
Bombshell	71.43 
Boiled Angels	71.43 
Blood Quantum	71.43 

Big Time Adolescence	70.63 
Frozen 2	70.63 
King of Staten Island, The	70.63 
Get Duked	70.63 

How To Build A Girl	69.84 
Hunt, The	69.84 

Hammer	69.05 
I Used To Go Here	69.05 
It Started As A Joke	69.05 
Host	69.05 
Terrified	69.05 
Happiest Season	69.05 

A Bluebird In My Heart	68.25 
Knock Down The House	68.25 
Run (2020)	68.25 

Dead Don't Die, The	67.46 
Spaceship Earth	67.46 
Captain America: Civil War	67.46 

Buffaloed	66.67 
Adult Beginners	66.67 
7500	66.67 
Sea Fever	66.67 
Gentlemen, The	66.67 
Social Dilemma, The	66.67 
Alone	66.67 
Antiviral	66.67 
Bill and Ted Face The Music	66.67 
Dreamland (2020)	66.67 

Charlie's Angels (2019)	65.87 

Invisible Man, The (2020)	65.08 
Villainess, The	65.08 
Star Wars: Rise of Skywalker	65.08 
Cadaver	65.08 

Godzilla: King of the Monsters	64.29 
Kiss The Ground	64.29 
Dora and the Lost City of Gold	64.29 

John Wick 3	63.49 
Lovebirds, The	63.49 
Code Blue	63.49 
Beach House, The	63.49 
Project Power	63.49 
American Murder	63.49 
Broken Hearts Gallery, The	63.49 

Flower	62.70 
Midnighters	62.70 
In The Radiant City	62.70 
Kindred	62.70 

Family Fang, The	61.90 
Downhill	61.90 
Equalizer 2, The	61.90 

You Should Have Left	61.11 
Patrick	61.11 

In Darkness	60.32 

Joker	57.94 
Zombieland: Double Tap	57.94 
Owners, The	57.14 

Witch: Subversion	56.35 
Black Christmas (2019)	56.35 
Good Boy	56.35 

Informer, The (2020)	54.76 

Come Play	52.38 

Terminator : Dark Fate	51.59 

Turning, The	50.00 

21 Bridges	46.83 
Still/Born	46.83 

Daniel Isn't Real	46.03 

Rhythm Section, The	42.86 
Night Clerk, The	42.86 
Unhinged	42.86 

Underwater	42.06 

Wretched, The	41.27 

Ava	40.48 

Valley Girl (1983)	36.51 
Tragedy Girls	36.51 
Short History of the Long Road, The	36.51 
I See You	36.51 
Wild Mountain Thyme	36.51 

Like A Boss	32.54 

How To Be Single	31.75 

Curse Of La Llorona, The	26.98 
Love The Coopers	26.98 

Bye Bye Man, The	26.19 

Lie, The	24.60 

Last Christmas	22.22 
Night Hunter	22.22 

Swimfan	17.46 

Friday the 13th (2009)	12.70 
Cruel Intentions	12.70 

Trespassers	11.11 

Roommate, The	6.35 
1BR	6.35 
Dangerous Lies	6.35 
After We Collided	6.35 

Holiday Breakup	1.59 

God's Not Dead	0.00 
Fatal Affair	0.00 

August 12, 2021 / barton smock

(films, toward

No matter how in-your-face hurt can be, intimacy doesn’t always get its close-up, and it’s in this unmothered proximity that David Gutnik’s Materna finds the distance to operate. Whether it’s the muscle amnesia of Kate Lyn Sheil’s performace, the gutted mimicry of Jade Eshete’s, the clocked-out but fleshed-in nowness of Lindsay Burdge’s, or the recreated absence that Assol Abdullina motions to from afar, all make of pain a figure fussing over a puzzle abandoned by image.   

~

Not so much fragmented as multiplied, Grear Patterson's film Giants Being Lonely is an anti-dream of an answer to the delicate interrogations that plague youth with finality. If you touch a baseball, you share a hand. If you speak, it's to more visibly miss being yelled at. The two central performances by Ben Irving and Jack Irving are softly anxious and run into each other tenderly enough that their injuries trade places without, or perhaps before, being hurt. There are no hard tells here. Dinner scenes are an empty win, a baseball field is an orphanage of light, and first dates are halved by the same appetite. While there is something magically small about its final shot, this film isn't really about sticking the landing, but about taking root.     

~


Robert Machoian's The Killing of Two Lovers captures the vastness of being lived in and knows to leave unnamed that thing that crawls toward the skin with its history of being chosen last and sent first. Clayne Crawford is upfront about his character's distance, and has something so informed physically coursing through his and another's person that even pain would need a moment to look away. Sepideh Moafi and Chris Coy, with Crawford, also bring their bodies into moments that need possessed, and make an already alien gut check of a film into something distilled and movingly abducted.



August 11, 2021 / barton smock

city,

city 121

My memory isn't what it will be.

Povertavoid, avidsad, handbefore. 

She wants a flowermysonisdead.