kingsoftrain

thru July 9th, Lulu is offering 10% off all print books AND free mail shipping (or 50% off ground) with coupon code of BOOKSHIP18

poetry collections, mine, self-published, are here: http://www.lulu.com/spotlight/acolyteroad

some older poems:

[tautologies]

an infant with still hands is said to be fingerpainting in hell. a man who wears a hat to bed is said to give god hair. a boy who strings up dead rabbits left and right is said to be fighting a toothache. a girl who punches herself in the nose is said to be a plain woman who on roller skates entered a strange traffic of hearse and horse as two of her mother’s footsteps.

[first appeared]

father kicks me under the table
for biting
early.

a ghost hears thunder.

[notes to abuser]

I have had to tell time using only repetition. there is a tattoo I want on a body I don’t. I can see what you see in me. none of my sounds echo. I have a son. I prepare for him past meals that leave nothing untouched hoping he’ll learn to chew on his own. he has three rooms upstairs and three down. when his bed can’t move, he says something to a door.

[immersion]

your attacker has a history of being baptized. identifies as male. was found hallucinating in a movie theater run by his father. we shot him not knowing he’d already been. his mother says his stutter is an act. she is what we call empty inside. you look like your father.

[onlookers]

I blow into the infant’s mouth as if I could prepare an echo for what’s about to happen. in my dream I am turning on a flashlight that thinks it can scream. in yours, reincarnation is all the brevity our lord can stomach.

[maker]

when I think about you

I don’t

[incarnate]

after we roll the dead dog from its towel and into god’s mouth

we take
for its tooth
a fly’s
grave.

satan’s kid continues to play chicken with a farm machine

in a slow
not still
life.

[exposure]

in a hotel bathtub
beneath a crooked
showerhead
two boys
on thumb war
number seven
are seen
by the same
hallucination
their colorblind
father
had
during
his dry spell, his bug
collecting
craze
when their mother
was the god
she went back
to being

[a photographic memory that applies only to acts of eating]

in the oar I broke on my brother’s knee
I found
a human
tooth.

here is a lamb
floating
in the reflection
of a star.

/

ALSO

I.

private publications are available via paypal (bartsmock@gmail.com) or https://www.paypal.me/BartonSmock, as such:

chapbook, [BASILISK], 64 pages $5.00
(Feb 2017)
chapbook, [the accepted field], 84 pages $5.00
(May 2017)
chapbook, [in this life another is you], 64 pages $3.00
(Oct 2017)

II.

I have privately published a work of mine consisting of 60 poems that I am calling {mood piece for baby blur}, and am making it available to anyone donating 5.00 or more to my poetry journal {isacoustic*}

donation can be made, here:
https://www.paypal.me/BartonSmock
or it can be sent to (bartsmock@gmail.com)

be sure to provide a physical address, to include your name, for the send.

You can check out {isacoustic*}, here:
site: https://isacoustic.com/
facebook page: https://www.facebook.com/Isacoustic-192435501303710/
twitter: https://twitter.com/isacousticVOL
instagram: https://www.instagram.com/isacousticvol/

share, or keep secret.

III.

6/15/18 release announcement for Heather Minette’s Half Light:

We at {isacoustic*} have yet to find our way, but we are humbled and happy to release and announce the publication of Half Light by Heather Minette. Please consider getting a copy…it is such a great book. I believe in it like I believe in belief.

You can get it here:
http://www.lulu.com/shop/heather-minette/half-light/paperback/product-23679092.html