I’d put something
in my mouth
and my nose
would bleed
and mom
would press
my ribs
and know
like that
the name
of the boy
buried
a horseshoe
–
return is a drug
hunger
a choice
–
and the lord said one of these animals is a writing machine
and the lord
he turned
the woman’s
shadow
into a garbage
bag
and the man’s
into water
–
sister dragged onto some dance floor
a scarecrow
–
pregnant / is what you get
if memory
remembers
to eat
some poems from my most recent self published thing
[shuteye in the land of the sacred commoner (& other poems)]
~
[omissive]
the child, the loneliest
reconciliation…
–
it is not quite suicide, not quite
career
–
sorrow’s racket,
as in
a deer
in the path
of an oncoming
deer
–
son I carry
no one’s
blood
~
[usage]
firstborn
I came
to soften
my brother.
before my mother knew how to sleep,
I slept. father
was a thing
forgotten
by something
real.
lighten up, dream, we’re light
on crow.
the animal
your favorite
you won’t
become.
~
[meditations on depth]
the mouth
of the thing
that eats
in fog
a doll’s
head
–
the holy spirit
high
on the bricklayer’s
toothache
–
a cat person
at death’s
door
–
poverty
a belonging
moved
by many
mirrors
~
[untitled]
/ had this hairbrush could halt hearing loss in hallucinations. this theory that eve was adam’s mother and that god was born in eden for refusing to study virgins. she had her facts straight and a dog would tell my son otherwise. a way of coaxing both murder and suicide to breastfeed death. this bird that would go
like a showerhead
south. a goldfish, a brainless calf…
~
[keep]
the laziness animals have, that kind of panicked longing…
and brevity, the faith
of insects
–
my shadow, of course, afraid of its borrowed blood
–
that barn
in the middle of nowhere’s haunted eyesight
–
the invisible
after-hours
birth, and the woman
who keeps the baby
despite
its perfection
–
this quiet in the redneck’s
library
of forgiveness, this thunder…
–
the agony of the boomerang’s maker
~
NOTE:
15% off and free mail shipping on all print books at Lulu with coupon code of COOKBOOK15
available now, self published companion piece to {infant*cinema}:
SHUTEYE
IN THE LAND
OF THE SACRED
COMMONER
& other poems
110 pages, 7.00
here:
http://www.lulu.com/shop/barton-smock/shuteye-in-the-land-of-the-sacred-commoner/paperback/product-22744790.html
(book preview on site is book entire)
~
infant*cinema, Dink Press chapbook, here:
http://www.dinkpress.com/store/infant-cinema-by-barton-smock
there’s a kid on a bike with a machete and she’s run your brother up a tree. your brother is taking off his clothes and the kid has a toe she treats like a loose tooth.
–
you watch as your mother tattoos the parts of her body she doesn’t like.
the cross on her ankle
an insomniac’s
plus sign.
–
I say to the bird of the chipped brain
that faith
is fascination’s
bruise…
–
the food is gone that was seen by prayer
like maybe god got into your head and left her mark on a clue. like maybe you’re the meal a father imagines he’ll make to injure an animal. like maybe there’s the eye has mama’s strong stomach and the eye has her hypnosis. like maybe you have one leg because it’s the leg taught baby to burn its food on a pig. like maybe talk is the scar this language looks at while going from snow to ash.
a tooth fairy sitting on the lap of a cannibal has just intercepted the message meant for my sister’s eating disorder. I like that movies have no future.
25% off all print books today at Lulu with coupon code of NEWJUNE25
my most recent is [MOON tattoo], available here:
http://www.lulu.com/shop/barton-smock/moon-tattoo/paperback/product-22634440.html
a review for [MOON tattoo] is here:
http://krystalsierra.blogspot.com/2016/05/between-language-and-narrative.html?m=1
~
some poems, from [MOON tattoo]:
level
brother is digging barehanded in the backyard a hole for what he hopes is the alien of god’s choice. as for existence, my mother’s is low on mine. my father is keeping out of the same sentence any mention of heroin and totem pole. no one including you cares for my sister’s worry that this no this is the bottom of a rock. if asked, I will say I was visiting with my arms the museum of rowboats during the regional spike in baptisms we as a family failed to interrupt.
~
meditation
summer was for sexting and for watering the scarecrow’s spine. say it with me this was not that summer. as a ghost might surprise the mother and go to salt, a doll might remember its teeth.
~
threshold
but for the death grip
she has
on a popcorn
necklace
the underdeveloped
character
from god’s
desert
memoir
would otherwise
stuff
her face
as if eating
above
a crow’s
grave
had ever
brought back
food
~
others, self published on Lulu:
eating the animal back to life
July 2015
earth is part earth and there’s a hole in the sound I made you from
December 2015
available here: http://www.lulu.com/spotlight/acolyteroad
~
not self published:
infant cinema
April 2016 (Dink Press)
available here: http://www.dinkpress.com/store/infant-cinema-by-barton-smock
~
read:
https://kingsoftrain.wordpress.com/
say:
bartonsmock@yahoo.com
watch:
the sleepwalker and the hangman jumping rope in the town of the sheepish tornado where the church of two birds admits the child of the expat exile into the afterlife of a stone…
i.
rain, bunny, prison yard
ii.
a boy
salts
a wet
fly, a hole
goes missing
iii.
soon as a spoon
a baby
becomes
its mother’s
bar
of soap
iv.
(going grey over parrot soup
v.
resurrection’s
hall of mirrors
vi.
a barber’s ransom note
at one with a lonesome populace
dream small, god…
about death
death
was a baby
kingsoftrain 