I didn’t say it was good
this idea
for a child’s
mask
/ it turns
what I know
the stomach
previously:
~
[deme]
i.
king of my mouth. king of my open. my legs
my cigarette
legs.
the end of my arms in baby country.
ii.
the start of my hands
their coat-hook
anxiety.
iii.
here is where the child was killed for being here.
why is a spider
not
a place?
iv.
the future, the uphill
the biked
body
most boats
dream of.
v.
the future
an evoked
salvaging.
~
[toying]
boy spotless, wrecker of the invisible home. oh mother, scrubber of the radar’s blip.
~
[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
~
[entries for giants]
not a thing born
nor a thing
howled at
no
you are not
again
these things
the baby
it continues
to purple itself
where it can
it crawls, but is mostly stunned
by its own
vocabulary
the dog has the tongue of a cat
this is new
~
[go last]
naked, I photograph your bed.
it takes me where I stand
the low joy
of jumping
rope.
birth has become a boys club.
I can weigh two things
with what
you broke.
~
[omphali]
sometimes
you’re awake
and your son
is awake
and neither
of you
believe
in sickness
the raccoon
mask
of sickness…
no god unkissed, no dirt…
and sleep, sleep
is a priest
whose hilljack
blood
favors
the cult
of the noiseless
ant
~
[vessels]
brother peace and brother quiet
dot
the same
neck.
so far, my hands have remembered being hands.
if on a balloon
a face
is drawn
you too
can call
it sister
whose dolls
have biblical
names.
the owl-headed man
what
can he do
in the crocodile’s
dream
of disappearing
lamb
but watch
the egging
of a hearse…
Ohio
a woman
found dead
in a cake
some recent:
~
[meditations on absence]
the ransom note
in suicide’s
dream journal
the ghost of the brainwashed rocking chair
fingers
teeth
who’s keeping
score
~
[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
~
[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
~
[the exact]
father became the man his possession foreshadowed. mom had a purse full of spoons. brother bathed any form quiet enough to make the kitchen sink. I began to believe. I began to hear in the rock
the thorn
it spoke for. over the nest of a bird,
the nothing to eat.
~
[brainiac]
days before comet
I bite my tongue
this close
to a worm
~
[exonerator]
a man goes unmolested into the knowledge of his body. has one hand had no choice. puts a doll in a carseat. makes his boy watch. a man recoils mid-dream
from a caterpillar. I am
what I’m
again.
~
[untitled]
I jumped from a tree seven times
trying to break
my arm.
which arm
by morning
remembered.
/ a virgin
doesn’t really see
his last
scarecrow.
/ if you open a pack of diapers
and some
are black / I have
four kids.
I dream
every night
one
goes missing
which means
by morning
the three
from the dream…
~
[climax]
the cigarette
the worrier’s
flashlight
the past
a widow…
deserted childhood, electric eel.
if poor
put mouth
where mouth
is
~
[angel ear]
writing again
in longhand
about what
a lover’s
lung?
bike repair
my problems
with mice
~
newest self published poetry collection:
MOON Tattoo
http://www.lulu.com/shop/barton-smock/moon-tattoo/paperback/product-22634440.html
there is also this:
http://www.dinkpress.com/store/infant-cinema-by-barton-smock
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
the power
came back on
the boy
didn’t.
I had my chance
to believe
in god.
the beetle was on its back
and the woman
unable
to kill herself
ordered
online
a rowing
machine.
mother’s garden, father’s ladder.
a black cat
where nothing
grew.
I am
, in the failed
body
of the creature
that swallowed
my thinking
spot
, still
a baby
the cigarette
the worrier’s
flashlight
the past
a widow…
deserted childhood, electric eel.
if poor
put mouth
where mouth
is
kingsoftrain 