I am differently
afraid
of each
cigarette
–
thematically, father hopes
to operate
on a clown
–
compared
to his
my hunger
is having
a flashback
–
wheelchair, oh
to its dog
door
bliss
sometimes it happens. it is plural. there is this, a goodreads giveaway for my latest book ‘earth is part earth and there’s a hole in the sound I made you from’:
~
also, be sure to check out Dink Press at dinkpress.com / from which a chapbook of mine titled ‘infant cinema’ is forthcoming / but right now what is there is Tim Kahl’s ‘String of Islands’– a great book, a book that says the urge to form is sudden – it is here:
http://www.dinkpress.com/store/the-string-of-islands-tim-kahl
~
and, today only, Lulu is offering 25% off all print books with coupon code of FEBFLASH25. my books are here:
http://www.lulu.com/spotlight/acolyteroad
~
some older poems:
[deep scene]
speech itself is a failed translation
dreaming is a farm
a mother
makes it as far
as mailbox
bear
to fish
there’s water
in the water
is, today’s mousetrap
tomorrow’s
shoe
~
[existence gospel]
the quiet woman mothers a silence gone rogue
and names
her kid
to death
~
[creatural]
I am reading
the book
that keeps me
from palm
–
during your pregnancy
an interactive
apathy
prepared
an alternate
witness
for the witness
to eat
–
I liked
your poem
the panther’s
boat
~
[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.
~
[themes for sea]
the prodigal son of simplicity
–
the pill popper’s
demographic
–
the mouth
as it keeps
the face
from parting
–
the canyon
of where
not
to snort
the ashes
of risen
sheep
–
paper
and the cup
it’s being
~
[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.
~
[fieldwork]
the evacuated court of my son’s illness.
the blind man’s
missing
eyelid.
the grief, the broth, the reacquired thrift.
the dispersed body. the hotbeds
of skeletal
trauma.
the dance music as mother’s
chthonian
darling.
the sorrow method. the rhythm.
a bruise, a school
of fish. a caterpillar
crossing
the floor
of hell. a thought
sick
to a son’s
stomach, a winter
glove
in spider’s
nightmare.
(on February 5th, I am planning to send hard copies of my newest publication ~earth is part earth and there’s a hole in the sound I made you from~ to those willing to read it and to those willing to either say something about it or keep quiet. if you are one of the first five individuals to send me a message with an address of where you’d like to receive it, I’ll include you as one of the individuals on the February 5th mailing. requests can be made to bartonsmock@yahoo.com)
here are some poems from the book:
–
[from the book of waiting]
what is it
dissolves
in the mother’s
foreseeable
presence?
faith
a flashback
god
is having.
–
[voice]
sex as something that has an end.
evidence of god
provided
to beings
of proof.
I will offer that I had children
because I myself
could not
shun
authority. post-harm
pick a word
you’ve heard
me say.
–
[trick blood]
the bottle takes what it can from the baby’s mouth. the stirring motion delivered to the hands of a misfit prophet. the knowledge of my father’s people that god is too old of a lover to get satan’s attention. the silence my mother kept quiet for. the second afterlife of a single breast.
–
[male music]
in the creek of tomato silence
where my father saw
what it was
god
could not eat
there lives
a tiny whale
fooled
by emptiness
to see a stone
as ruin’s
pursuit
of aftermath
one must share
this dream
of arriving
on earth
to pray
if the unwrapping
of your mother’s
head wound
coincides
with
a tornado
sighting
chances are
you’ve heard
a crop duster
burn
in the dream
of a weary
crow
[premises]
he is cheating
resurrection.
his baby is a baby
in that it tries
to leave
a note
for god.
his mother lets it go
on the roof
of a hospital
about the kids
she saw
fucking
in a grocery
cart.
proof
yearns.
~
[root]
I left quietly
the pet store
of haunted animals.
a drifter preaching polyamory
took mental note
of my appearance.
a man was my father.
~
[outer life]
they’d say his head was hard because it was too small for god to kiss. when he’d come into town, he’d leave with children we’d not seen except on posters. his welcome mat was a napkin spotted with blood from a Q-tip. save for the tiny matter of Jesus, our parents gave him little to do.
~
[the bridge]
let me not pray
for this man
who captured
on film
for the last time
in its environment
god’s bed. let me not
be consumed
by this man’s return
to the inexact art
of home. let me obsess
instead
over a portrait
of myself
trapped
by aging, let me grow
to my waist
my hair
might it burn
might I then
to the accumulation
of sight
and sight’s
potential
bow
~
[captions]
underling animals
in times
of quake /
slight
swellings
in brain
of maybe
one mole
bottled
now
for sea /
if on a baby
your hands
would be
so cute
but as
an adult
you glove them /
world as wheelchair
the wheelchair
from which
god rose /
as sporadic
surges
switch on
the sink’s
disposal
pull thorns
from the rabbits
you dream
~
[I saw my youngest brother born]
I saw his mouth.
I thought he’d ripped.
~
[the small]
I acquired you as an infant from a gentleman who needed parts for a radio he planned to invent. listening to his radio was a long way off. you sat early. you called me mother before I was ready. if I was good, you’d play a videocassette to watch it dream. I looked at stars and you were a toddler. our life was life on other planets until the gentleman returned. he said he’d seen satan in a space suit and that satan had given him signs of sexual abuse. you were not unrecognizably depressed but did start a fire in a photograph.
~
[cure]
the dark, the ocean.
I have two reasons to believe god
has not stopped creating.
–
our father
had this phrase
all in good time
psychic
–
my anger has gone the way of the milkman.
his doomed child
with her piece of chalk.
~
[bait]
I didn’t see it
like some kids
saw it-
pain
as clay.
a swat here or there
to the back
of a mother’s
mind.
a man who took a bowling ball
into a closed garage
had no sadness
I could pray
over.
…Santa smoked on the roof
of my father’s house
while I
with a noiseless
stomach
touched
that hunger.
~
[how to live in the country dark]
toss frogs
into a fire
your father made.
find a woman
who’s abandoned herself
to being led
by a stick, let
her blind
mongrel
lick
your palm.
bury a handful
of gravel
call it
the moon’s
grave.
hide in houses
hidden
from road.
make at least one friend
whose night vision
is a glass of milk.
double your body
by walking
drunk.
~
[irrevocably child]
pressing
a cigarette
into the double
absence
of what
has become
the snowman’s
mouth
the woman
begs
for a light…
it is a thing done softly
in a larger movement
of searching
belly-up
the nowhere
that sober
looks funny
alone
~
[tell it to my brother]
a widow
with three hands
has ten
doomed
acquaintances.
god’s tacklebox is too light
to carry.
think of it as your ascent into feminine indifference.
think of your son as the incurable
made
thing
on the factory floor
of my son’s
use.
a male mime
bites into
a bar of soap…
sex
is a bruise
in a blizzard
~
[mendicant]
this doorbell
is for the inside
of your house
–
to some
you’re the giant
you’re not
–
hearing isn’t for everyone
–
a fog-softened man
with a baby
might experience
a sense
of boat
loss…
–
hurt
what you know
~
[crystal]
a foster boy using an alias teaches my son to shoot.
it’s the tooth fairy on a sad day finds
under my pillow
a handgun.
you know your father
is a night owl.
a brother
dodges
suicide
with a piece
of paper
that doesn’t
work. a mother’s
blood
goes white
at the ink
of amnesia.
bus stop, breastmilk
there was
no me.
at what would god
not
be caught
dead? speaking
is how we talk
to the words
we say.
the field
where father
sold
from a grounded
helicopter
a fog
machine
to one
whose pregnancy
had not
ended / the field
where brother
found
in a condom
a piece
of chalk / the field
sorta
field
like
with its puppies
and its trash / yeah
there is something to be said
I don’t know what
to echo’s
first
love / the dizzy
spells
of deer
kingsoftrain 