the doll
in this picture
talks
to god
my dream
is to see
its ribs
from collection {L A I T Y}
(i)
on video my cousin is singing a song she’s learned by heart. she’s maybe four. I don’t know where to begin. this pond behind her, perhaps? that in my memory is the size of a fire pit. or maybe, here, in the darkening sameness of those sentences strung together by cows. or years from now, even, with the word no and her sister’s lookalike being assaulted by an only child in a library of fragile non-fiction. my cousin is singing a song she’s learned by heart. she’s five. a careful six. sound’s fossil. no city half-imagined. no insect obsessed with privacy. time matters to the frog we catch.
~
(ii)
there are days he is the son of muscle memory and funny bone. days his hands are gloves from a small god. poor god, he says, and grows. days he can carry a circle to any clock in the…
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change, update: now thru February 5th, 10% off all print books AND free mail shipping with coupon code of BOOKSHIP18
through February 1st, FREE mail shipping (or 50% off ground shipping) on all Lulu print books with coupon code of SHIPIT2018
my latest self-published:
http://www.lulu.com/shop/barton-smock/everything-i-touch-remembers-being-my-hand/paperback/product-23456834.html
all:
http://www.lulu.com/spotlight/acolyteroad
~
some recent poems:
[musics]
a tongueless form eats from the psalm of your shape. I say birth
you say
assault. we are code
maybe
for embed. our mother pawns
the paw
in her stomach
hoping to afford an impression
of the hand
that created
hands.
I have prayed to a cautious god.
~
[safe musics]
the amnesia
of my jack-in-the-box
gave way
to boomerangs
and motion
was the capital
of grief
~
[ain’t musics]
this story again
my flat
brother
on his bike
with baby possums
eight of them
under his ballcap-
the mothered vehicle
of home, the doubled
kindness
of road
and kill-
how taken
from heaven
we lived
~
[body musics]
for fear I will want to be the…
View original post 282 more words
it took seven days
for our skin to dry
did our bellies
touch
above a sameness
of sons
on skateboards, of disabled
brothers
she drags
the nothing
from a dancer’s
cigarette
and trades
something mothered
for something
imagined
beneath a once
creative
god
squeeze
my shoulder
I think
bird
then species
of bird
plural
of deer
and species
of god
through February 1st, FREE mail shipping (or 50% off ground shipping) on all Lulu print books with coupon code of SHIPIT2018
my latest self-published:
http://www.lulu.com/shop/barton-smock/everything-i-touch-remembers-being-my-hand/paperback/product-23456834.html
all:
http://www.lulu.com/spotlight/acolyteroad
~
some recent poems:
[musics]
a tongueless form eats from the psalm of your shape. I say birth
you say
assault. we are code
maybe
for embed. our mother pawns
the paw
in her stomach
hoping to afford an impression
of the hand
that created
hands.
I have prayed to a cautious god.
~
[safe musics]
the amnesia
of my jack-in-the-box
gave way
to boomerangs
and motion
was the capital
of grief
~
[ain’t musics]
this story again
my flat
brother
on his bike
with baby possums
eight of them
under his ballcap-
the mothered vehicle
of home, the doubled
kindness
of road
and kill-
how taken
from heaven
we lived
~
[body musics]
for fear I will want to be the son of every man I meet
I give god
enough
to imagine
me naked
* and failed / comes field / out a mother’s / mouth
~
[father musics]
she says / drunkenly / birth / as bait
and insects / cigarettes
flicked
from eden /
she mourns / god / the empirical / mourner
and mourns yes / the cold
knees of water
~
[ideal musics]
crow / the sworn / off
microphone
of my maker / a suicide
inspired / by a findable / stone
exodus / of the left
handed / boats
with animal
names
~
[sibling musics]
a found grief in these eggs that scar the pan
–
moon
gives mom
a toothache
–
if you can, bed hunger.
that sleepy
mirror…
–
not news
to your double
my death
~
[milk musics]
newborn
with back pain.
(the cigarette that takes the pulse of our ghost)
it is raining
on the feet of god
~
[blood musics]
so famously
daughter
she is too young
to smoke
–
her silence
in the shorthand
of my mouth
remains
born
–
there is no dark doorknob that ain’t the fist of her brother, no
madwoman
boiling
a deaf
snake
–
she takes it outside
her made-up song
~
[mother musics]
does this thing / with her voice / the boys
they all pray
for the knee / of a ghost / an egg
hatched / in the heartbroken
fog
~
[dog musics]
i.
brother
while slicing
an apple
changes
his name
to earshot
ii.
an orange eats everything
but its mask. there was no ocean
iii.
until we hid from the storm. ticks are crickets
iv.
that belong to the poor
for fear I will want to be the son of every man I meet
I give god
enough
to imagine
me naked
* and failed / comes field / out a mother’s / mouth
crow / the sworn / off
microphone
of my maker / a suicide
inspired / by a findable / stone
exodus / of the left
handed / boats
with animal
names
she says / drunkenly / birth / as bait
and insects / cigarettes
flicked
from eden /
she mourns / god / the empirical / mourner
and mourns yes / the cold
knees of water
kingsoftrain 