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June 6, 2017 / barton smock

{irenic}

15% off on all print books at Lulu today with coupon code of LULU15

my most recent self-published {paw five} is here:

http://www.lulu.com/shop/barton-smock/paw-five/paperback/product-23198602.html

~

some recent poems:

[contact]

mouth, scene one. a rocking horse drinks from a toilet. there is a ghost in the basement. a girl is circling the neighborhood in the car she was hit by. her skateboard misses one shoe more than the other. it seems to her that maybe far away a fetus is fixing its hair. she is not the focus.

~

[some near thing]

it’s late. my kids laugh in a dirty kitchen. I am in the hallway having just killed a wasp for looking like hunger. the wasp is in my hand. I can’t move. the boy who touched all the eggs.

~

[the poor don’t get amnesia]

snake was made
from the bones
of a circle

~

[toys made in human silence]

the rock thrown by an only child. the wasp the seashell of a mother’s desert. the zookeeper’s raft.

~

[atomy]

the white doghouse. the closed drive-in. the animal we shared to avoid miracle. our empty child

mostly
from books.

~

[fish from scratch]

I wasn’t born and then I wasn’t born sad. old phones are the stuff of male nightmares.

~

[spectacle]

we pray to the being god meant to rob

June 6, 2017 / barton smock

at peace

daughter leaves behind her short films on separation anxiety. the baby likes all three of its cribs. I return again to the last thing god made. what being can death thank for the memories?

June 5, 2017 / barton smock

goat season

brother kicks a turtle
down track
and trains
take only
deer

June 4, 2017 / barton smock

church fragments

and you will have a son
with a perfect mouth
and he will tell
the bomb
there’s nothing
left

–

I blame god because I believe in blame

–

the wisemen
call this
astronomy
for hunchbacks

June 2, 2017 / barton smock

{fifth}

am making 10 copies of my newest publication {paw five} available for free with request made to bartonsmock@yahoo.com

book is available below, and the book preview on site is the book entire:

http://www.lulu.com/shop/barton-smock/paw-five/paperback/product-23198602.html

~

some poems from the collection:

[the rapture]

grief is grief because it attempts to mourn the infinite. my leg’s blood becomes a branch. I breathe and think I’m eating.

~

[annihilatives]

the present happens at different times. fetus, comma, tadpole. surgery, please tell this mask

my face went down on nothingness.

~

[childhood (i)]

the body of jesus
pulled from the sea

June 2, 2017 / barton smock

cattle

father won’t say sea. there’s land
and there’s land
underwater. troll

eats architect. in a field.

June 2, 2017 / barton smock

balm

for Jon Cone

what am I / but unaware / as an echo / now / in my knowing / of this small / passage / he’s written

how god
upon seeing
man
said none
shall recall
his beauty

June 1, 2017 / barton smock

emotives

it entered the burning house to ask each boy what it should take. chinrest. mirror.

time to think.

June 1, 2017 / barton smock

contact

mouth, scene one. a rocking horse drinks from a toilet. there is a ghost in the basement. a girl is circling the neighborhood in the car she was hit by. her skateboard misses one shoe more than the other. it seems to her that maybe far away a fetus is fixing its hair. she is not the focus.

June 1, 2017 / barton smock

spectacle

we pray to the being god meant to rob