kingsoftrain

May 3, 2019 / barton smock

softenings

is there a path
my mouth
didn’t take
does birth
adopt
the poolside
language
of a signature
absence
is god
a swimmer
a talker
are there
hobby coffins
for nesting
dolls
can we

(kiss

May 2, 2019 / barton smock

{ small & before }

[estimations. longings.]

to adopt
god
the paperwork
alone

~~~~~

[sleep]

/ the broken hand of my whale-watching mother

// bruise
that plays
god

/// an owl
from the waist
up

~~~~~

[centipede]

a bookmark made by mother from the fingerprints of god. a stretcher mourned by a ladder. the last nerve of grief. recipe from the beginner’s guide to poverty. neckwear. dream’s comet.

~~~~~

[brevities]

if told by your hands to set myself on fire, I would pray my father into a snake and death would cry in a whale for every bee that lost its voice.

~~~~~

[childlike boredom]

never be more creative than your abuser.

I’ll bring christ, you

canary

~~~~~

[could be you’ll die]

in front of something
god remembers

May 2, 2019 / barton smock

Ohio deaths (xxiii)

permission
to report
sightings
of uncommon
roadkill

and
or

to estimate

multiple
longings

May 1, 2019 / barton smock

Ohio deaths (xxii)

if caught
early,

sickness will erase the body’s memory of dying.

(late,

will make
from god
a trapped
ghost

May 1, 2019 / barton smock

spiritual correctives

what is hunger but looking at the shape your mouth didn’t bring? what is the past, the present, the future

but glue stick, puberty, grief

god but the nothing

my hair
does at night

April 29, 2019 / barton smock

the circumstances surrounding the death of the exaggerated angel

i.

for every balloon animal
you finish
after stepping
on a nail

a child
will live.

ii.

tug my arm gently. complain

five times
to a starfish.

April 29, 2019 / barton smock

{ old, slightly edited, musics }

~

[removal musics (x)]

this father
handing over
bibles
to prison-scene
extras, his sadness

sorrow’s
nondescript
editor…

the drive-in’s
elegiac
dog
/ nose
to the scarcity
of theatrical
emptiness…

the fish (a cigarette burn on the body of god

(gets bigger
over time….

how unfair
to insomnia
the monster
with child

~

[give god my space in the unleft church]

as you count on your teeth the losses I’ve turned to stone

~

[no musics]

I am to bed without supper for hiding my face from the lord. in the city, my brother is handcuffed for biting his wrists. still unborn is the calf that invented sadness. do I look like what you feel when you look at me? I think there is only hell.

~

[lawn musics]

books on arson, grammar, vandalism…

god, multiple owners.

a typewriter
touched by father
at night.

the electric chair my brother imagined
& the hair
my sister…

adam (who’s never known the age of eve

~

[confession musics]

I planted a gun on myself in a dream. also

dad
I was faking
sleep

sometimes death

~

April 29, 2019 / barton smock

{ .lone }

some recent reflections, etc:

I received ARCs from YesYes books for Tanya Olson’s Stay and for Ceremony of Sand by Rodney Gomez, and wrote reflections on each at isacoustic.com

I also recently read Build Yourself a Boat, by Camonghne Felix, and had the chance to review Logan February’s Mannequin In The Nude for Heavy Feather Review.

These are all beautiful books.

I can afford, at the moment, to purchase one copy of each and am offering to send said copies, respectively, to the first four to email me a physical address at bartonsmock@yahoo.com

~

You can take a look at the books, here:

Ceremony of Sand, Rodney Gomez:
https://www.yesyesbooks.com/product-page/ceremony-of-sand-by-rodney-gomez

Stay, Tanya Olson:
https://www.yesyesbooks.com/product-page/stay-by-tanya-olson

Build Yourself A Boat, Camonghne Felix:
https://www.haymarketbooks.org/books/1274-build-yourself-a-boat

Mannequin In The Nude, Logan February:
https://pankmagazine.com/shop/mannequin-in-the-nude/

~

reflections, as such:

on Ceremony of Sand:
http://isacoustic.com/2019/03/28/ceremony-of-sand-poems-rodney-gomez/

on Stay:
http://isacoustic.com/2019/03/20/stay-poems-tanya-olson/

on Mannequin In The Nude:

Mannequin in the Nude, a poetry collection by Logan February, reviewed by Barton Smock

on Build Yourself A Boat:
http://isacoustic.com/2019/04/26/build-yourself-a-boat-poems-camonghne-felix/

April 29, 2019 / barton smock

{ lone. }

my first full-length, non self-published, work is titled Ghost Arson (Kung Fu Treachery Press 2018)

have copies, on my person, now.

if you’ve read it, skimmed it, or rewritten it…say something somewhere.

goodreads page:
https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/43229602-ghost-arson

~

if interested in reviewing, contact me at ghostarson@gmail.com

book is 15.00 / orders for signed copies can be made via paypal to ghostarson@gmail.com or by using link:
PayPal.Me/ghostarson

*be sure to include your address in the notes field

or one can send a check to:
Barton Smock
5155 Hatfield Drive
Columbus, OH 43232

on amazon:

at barnes & noble:
https://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/ghost-arson-barton-smock/1129931893?ean=9781946642868

facebook page: https://www.facebook.com/ghostarson/

review by Dd. Spungin: https://kingsoftrain.com/2018/11/28/dd-spungins-review-of-ghost-arson/

review by George Salis: https://kingsoftrain.com/2018/12/17/review-by-george-salis-of-barton-smocks-ghost-arson/

interview by Crystal Stone for Flyway Journal: http://flywayjournal.org/book-reviews/interview-with-barton-smock-author-of-ghost-arson/

April 26, 2019 / barton smock

{ Build Yourself A Boat ~ poems ~ Camonghne Felix }

ISACOUSTIC*

Build Yourself A Boat
Camonghne Felix
Haymarket Books, 2019

~

I didn’t know art could do this. Do these. As in, I didn’t know a vision could project itself as singular and, with that projection, distract its own shape long enough to give periphery a stomach. Camonghne Felix is an asker and a teller. A thinker one rethinks so that one might get the chance to pose the same question a second time. How was fire born? Fire was born plural. Is nostalgia real? The aftermath of origin is real. Can you describe embodiment? Description is alone; description cannot swim.

Not my answers. Build Yourself A Boat is a book that marks its words and comes back for them.

~

reflection by Barton Smock

~

book is here:
https://www.haymarketbooks.org/books/1274-build-yourself-a-boat

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kingsoftrain

softenings

{ small & before }

Ohio deaths (xxiii)

Ohio deaths (xxii)

spiritual correctives

the circumstances surrounding the death of the exaggerated angel

{ old, slightly edited, musics }

{ .lone }

{ lone. }

{ Build Yourself A Boat ~ poems ~ Camonghne Felix }

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