I am tired of being curious. what I mean is my son is cheering for a photograph. what I don’t mean is you can’t drown a ventriloquist. here is what I remember: his body bouncing around inside the ambulance as if the ambulance wasn’t there. what I don’t
is that first, that invisible, pill.
those first animals
were angels
who’d either
slept
in their clothes
or caught
god
eating
/ has memory
always
denied
being young, do I look
shape
like death
is an idea
shape is waiting
to have…
how angelic
the nervousness
of insects
offering acne
to god
/ to glacier, crow is not
yet a thing
after staring all day at a birthmark, father asks can he wear my glasses. done growing, sister breaks her nose. shadows mother from birdbeak to mudmask.
inside
an apple
by the light
of a tooth
where nothing
has belonged
to god
8 poems of mine at Underfoot Poetry- huge thanks to the kindly awake Tim Miller and Daniel Paul Marshall…
https://underfootpoetry.wordpress.com/2018/05/31/barton-smock-7-poems/
Phantom Tongue
poems, Steven Sanchez
Sundress Publications, 2018
~
‘I step back to remember
what else my body’s darkness saturates’ – {from} What the Water Gave Me
I don’t know what poetry should do; this language, third language, I was born to miss. But there is a work being done by Steven Sanchez in the book Phantom Tongue that, embedded in miracle, outgrows witness. That you will lose your voice reading. That calls echo the pearl of ache, and names chasm as the twice present history of seek and summon. Body as hyphen, body as bridge. Touch be a landmark. Dear poem, do these. See in your dream a puppet keeping safe a compass. Lead from the dream the angel confused by hunger.
~
reflection by Barton Smock
~
book is here:
https://squareup.com/market/sundress-publications/item/phantom-tongue-by-steven-sanchez-pre-order
have you written slowly enough for things to happen? lovely
wrist
I will eat
what is there. a flower, a clumsy
angel
touching the nerve
of a ghost
kingsoftrain 