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June 27, 2016 / barton smock

{them}

35% off all print books on LULU today with coupon code of LULU35

my most recent self-published book is here:
http://www.lulu.com/shop/barton-smock/shuteye-in-the-land-of-the-sacred-commoner/paperback/product-22744790.html

all available, are here:
http://www.lulu.com/spotlight/acolyteroad

~

some poems from previous collection, ‘eating the animal back to life’:

[inseparable]

mother is watching a show that keeps her from picturing the gods who portray us. father is choosing an ice cube to bury. myself I am very close to stripping for the cigarette my sister rescued from a baby’s crayon box in a dream that smelled like her clothes.

~

[the invite]

the path of least woman.

not even
my kind

of violence.

father’s faith needs some time alone.

she’s had work done.

the headaches
are real.

~

[claims]

I enter with my small life to profile the impressions you did of my brother. these kids, they cough in photos. as for her, her father’s voice could up and speak at a moment’s notice. I move the gun daily. if my head wasn’t glued on, I’d have lost my ears to the hive mind of ghost forgiveness. my brother liked to play leap frog. fuck art. we live too long.

~

[themes for supply]

thing is, my eyes are rarely bigger than my stomach. mother says I have a face for makeup. I babysit often. victims, mostly, of tooth on tooth violence. my brother drinks to our father’s medicine. water that’s been walked on.

~

[buzzer therapy]

dearest ear,
god is not my fault.

I can hear the worm’s message,
the anthill’s thunder.

revelation comes
once a week
to come out
of its coma. between us,

my rapist belongs to me.

~

[themes for shadow]

when toothpick young you see a snake go mad with second nature and a sponge dragging your mother through nothing’s data

~

[arms]

it is not suicide to bomb god’s shadow. I am the dot my father calls button. my son’s mind would’ve given oxygen too many places to go. his body happened overnight.

June 27, 2016 / barton smock

loneliness

the only
animal
recognized
by the magician’s
one-trick
pony

/ touch
giving itself
a childhood

/ an alien’s
crucifix

June 27, 2016 / barton smock

homage

like some verbally abused parrot

the crow
the phone’s
god

June 26, 2016 / barton smock

depictions of reentry (x)

the unlit candle

desertion’s birthday

–

the voice
is not god’s
that experiments
on children

but ask
away

–

the dog we buried
is sometimes
on fire

watched
we think
by our sister’s
cooking

June 25, 2016 / barton smock

depictions of reentry (ix)

before I got sick
there was a sound
my mother
could make
and a bird
perched
on the arm
of a snowman…

angels, yeah

some
grab their ears
when trapped

June 25, 2016 / barton smock

depictions of reentry (viii)

we laugh about them now

scarecrows
the stepchildren
of apocalypse…

pregnancy as suicide prevention.

be wowed
by stuff
on earth.

June 24, 2016 / barton smock

{ago, moons}

30% off all print books on Lulu today with coupon code of LULU30

~

MOON tattoo, recent full length collection:

http://www.lulu.com/shop/barton-smock/moon-tattoo/paperback/product-22634440.html

a reading of MOON tattoo:

a review of MOON tattoo:

http://krystalsierra.blogspot.com/2016/05/between-language-and-narrative.html?m=1

~

a poem from MOON tattoo:

(-)

I am waiting to have the one dream
belongs
to my ghost

–

in heaven
the story
of my emptiness
has only
a middle

–

what I teach my dying son
is be good
to god
now

–

here are a few words
on context
and here
its haunted
postage

–

the past
is lonely
if someone
arrives

–

between birth and death

the gospel
of aftertaste

–

grief
has its own
cat

–

grief
has its own
cat

June 24, 2016 / barton smock

scare

I know it is nothing

or a relative
of nothing

what mice
make
of a mouse
possessed

/ my distance from the unborn widens

June 24, 2016 / barton smock

the cross

the haunted clock
in tornado’s
house

the weightlifter’s flower

the rabbit’s
bliss

June 23, 2016 / barton smock

depictions of reentry (vii)

/ the hands and the crushed mind they crawl from

/ god of the briefly ugly

/ the homeless child of nostalgia’s native

/ graveyard
our game
of telephone