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May 22, 2017 / barton smock

the outright sadness of his vanished physique

far be it from me
to stir
the madness
of fish.

age allows that we are younger for god.

sleep
is a shadow’s
bookmark.

May 20, 2017 / barton smock

gutless data

it is always a neighbor of ours tries to schedule amnesia and gets put down for suicide. it is always me on a farm machine hasn’t moved in years writing a poem for mom. it is never a mediocre ventriloquist marries a better.

May 20, 2017 / barton smock

straying

mom takes photos of things we are near.

a piece of gum that won’t bleed.
a plastic bag from the head of a carousel horse.
the circle’s dark past.

May 19, 2017 / barton smock

{of}

eating the animal back to life
10.00
315 pages
published July 2015

http://www.lulu.com/shop/barton-smock/eating-the-animal-back-to-life/paperback/product-22277755.html

~

earth is part earth and there’s a hole in the sound I made you from
9.00
98 pages
published December 2015

http://www.lulu.com/shop/barton-smock/earth-is-part-earth-and-theres-a-hole-in-the-sound-i-made-you-from/paperback/product-22503167.html

~

MOON tattoo
9.00
114 pages
published March 2016

http://www.lulu.com/shop/barton-smock/moon-tattoo/paperback/product-22621263.html

~

infant*cinema, Dink Press, April 2016
6.00 (first non self-published work)

http://dinkpress.bigcartel.com/product/infant-cinema-by-barton-smock

~

shuteye in the land of the sacred commoner (& other poems)
7.00
114 pages
published June 2016

http://www.lulu.com/shop/barton-smock/shuteye-in-the-land-of-the-sacred-commoner/paperback/product-22744790.html

~

FOUR
12.00
340 pages
published June 2016

~ this is a combined publication of these four collections: earth is part earth and there’s a hole in the sound I made you from / MOON tattoo / infant*cinema / shuteye in the land of the sacred commoner [& other poems] ~

http://www.lulu.com/shop/barton-smock/four/paperback/product-22756947.html

~

depictions of reentry
9.00
146 pages
published August 2016

http://www.lulu.com/shop/barton-smock/depictions-of-reentry/paperback/product-22811652.html

~

hick lore rabbit hole
9.00
124 pages
published October 2016

http://www.lulu.com/shop/barton-smock/hick-lore-rabbit-hole/paperback/product-22914385.html

~

pictures of god don’t sell
12.00
378 pages
published December 2016

(newer poems and poems selected from eating the animal back to life, as well as collections depictions of reentry and hick lore rabbit hole in full)

http://www.lulu.com/shop/barton-smock/pictures-of-god-dont-sell/paperback/product-22977531.html

~

surprise for me a crow
8.00
104 pages
published January 2017

http://www.lulu.com/shop/barton-smock/surprise-for-me-a-crow/paperback/product-23034353.html

~

name calling
9.00
110 pages
published March 2017

http://www.lulu.com/shop/barton-smock/name-calling/paperback/product-23117082.html

~

author spotlight on lulu:

http://www.lulu.com/spotlight/acolyteroad

all book previews on site are the viewed book in its entirety. will send free PDFs per request. also, all titles will be sent free in hard copy to those interested in writing a review.

inquire, request, here: bartonsmock@yahoo.com or bartsmock@gmail.com

~

youtube channel readings:

https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC6WuSKK8yNnngtdNlb5NfwQ

May 19, 2017 / barton smock

unrisen

this oven
this chapel
of the television’s
right
to privacy…

which paw
for mom’s
mosquito
bread

May 18, 2017 / barton smock

a memory

I roll from my mother
my father
sketching
the ghost
of a stone

May 18, 2017 / barton smock

{those names}

20% off all Lulu books today with coupon code of LULU20

my most recent collection is {name calling}, and is here:
http://www.lulu.com/shop/barton-smock/name-calling/paperback/product-23117082.html

~

some poems from {name calling}:

[entries for tone]

it learned to read by being called every name in the book and it wrote eulogies for the children of getaway drivers and it knew nail as the light bulb of a dream journal and it did not know which palm print went with which birthmark on its mother’s vision board and it had its hair pulled out in a cornfield by a boy / god was too / young to have

~

[keening (xxii)]

killing the firstborn is so yesterday. let’s be lonely. maternity leave for clowns. ant farms on airplanes.

~

[entries for listen]

mirror
to window
we’re moving
away

~

[entries for intimacy]

things I said when I stepped on a nail
things like
a spelling bee
is underway
in hell
and how deep
it goes
the thumb’s
suicide

~

[no one looks for lost warnings]

a one-legged boy
and a lame
bird

in a roller
skate

~

[entries for vertigo]

let surgery leave something in your mouth.

weigh them as a whole, the clothes of the smallest person who died on your watch. the blindfolds. the dreams of your stick population. down the pill

yet inside
the black
sheep.

~

[entries for Ohio (ii)]

how absence is to me a bowl and to you a basket. how brothers fight over the last fish and the first snowflake. how sisters arrive whole from the museum of shortcuts. how a baby dressed like another baby is not abused. how a father slips a bear into his story of a mousetrap. how a mother points a set of wind-up teeth away from a square of wet cement. how on a soundstage I roll my ankle while you lift alone a magician’s birthweight. how porn. how it listens in a bathroom stall to the click of a viewfinder. how they horse. and ache.

~

[entries for surrender]

sorrow the mudwrestler of my drought

whose tooth fairy
does
impressions

can we erase
what silence
films

a dog
a smaller
prison

May 18, 2017 / barton smock

satan

awake and watching his bird feeder

May 17, 2017 / barton smock

each ear is an only child

shaped
by a scarecrow
barber
known
to cut straws
for quiet
angels

May 16, 2017 / barton smock

poem

remember to rub them, the hands of the slow learner.

and to say their prayer

the one for the bald princess

& her child’s
perfect
somersault