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.
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
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
boy spotless, wrecker of the invisible home. oh mother, scrubber of the radar’s blip.
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.
as overcome as I was to be gifted a hospital gown, I had nothing on the angel whose brain / for visiting the eye / was banished…
we are the dead
we’re here
to return
[themes for contact]
mid-cigarette
my sister
remembers
to smoke.
god hops
in place
on one foot.
most of our health
is rabbit
health.
not for nothing
the look on your face
boy
when you’ve nowhere
to put a baby.
also,
the drawings that didn’t make the bible.
~
[neonate]
I named you once before you were born and once after. your room was blue for so long. you’d kick and I’d press my thumb to your father’s wrist. my hand is still wet from putting jesus as a baby beneath a nervous goldfish. I know what happens to people like me.
~
[input]
I am the photo my visions take.
high
on memorization
the mother
has to believe
in god
for god
to have
a safe
word.
the boy is dirt and noise. is hindsight’s
gospel.
loneliness, meet maker.
~
[I miss you]
when younger
than sex
but older
than grief
my greatest
ambition
was to give
context
to the left hand
applauding
despair.
now, what I do
for grief
is translate
a passage
from one language
to the same.
[wonders]
she is a location
policed
by a trauma
that never
returns.
that’s a mouthful
on a first
date
but she is far
from photographing
roadkill.
still, she hears
it said
in sister
and in health…
/ she starts with a boy
who becomes a clown
getting
his pilot’s
license
on borrowed
time. what she knows
by number
is the single
highway
truck
that doesn’t
come.
her father is just
as she imagines-
a man
not making
siren
sounds
pulled over
by the man
who is.
she fucks
with her troubled
flashlight.
putting the meat
back together
in an unfilled
pool
we yawned
at the same
time / brief
painless
the unmothered
between
speaking of amen, infant * cinema, my first non self-published work, is here:
http://www.dinkpress.com/store/infant-cinema-by-barton-smock
~
also, or otherwise, or never, or fuck me:
Lulu is offering free mail shipping and 50% off ground shipping on all print orders today with coupon code APRSHIP50
~
as such:
MOON tattoo, April 2016, Barton Smock
take:
http://www.lulu.com/shop/barton-smock/moon-tattoo/paperback/product-22634440.html
put:
and poems, from:
–
[memorial]
the dog moves from sun to shade
its master writes of the beating
a woman
takes
I saw
I can prove it
the size of that tick
does anyone
remind me
to eat
–
[memorial (ii)]
the boy
whose first
computer
was pain
they put something in his food
to make
him drink…
–
one animal
out of how
many
–
marries
–
to avoid
god
–
[memorial (iii)]
memory
has nothing
it remembers
making
–
I’ll know an animal when god sees one
–
the guard
I slept with
gave me
you
–
pain, indicia, Amen
kingsoftrain 