when I think about you
I don’t
extramural (i)
as he prepared to leave my world to the memory of a man addicted to god, my father was stung by a bee. this matters. bees carried the scent of absence. bees spoke to mother. mother was the woman it took two like my father to make. mother swallowed to bruise the body of any dropped thing sounding itself out in a nightmare had by children new to infancy. mother swallowed and called it singing. there will be a god. this matters. perfect, now, the nothing you say.
extramural (ii)
as acne commits my face to a memory of scripture, god worries that man’s silence is a pox upon both the crow and the crow. on good authority, the cyclops is blind in one eye. you were tortured, yes, but nothing stands out. my living hand performs for my dying. imagine my father’s dismay at the realization yours had of having done this autopsy before.
extramural (iii)
the fireplace is on drugs. get the good rope and tie it around the wrist of the hand I want dead.
–
on a drive I’ve undertaken to see my brother, it comes to me that odd things were being sold. jesus-on-a-stick. the crown of thorns, extra. I close my eyes. I dare the brain. the brain says it’s off to be forgiven.
–
brother has one ugly foot and one beautiful. I have this disorder causes me to fully remember dreams*
*dreams only
–
everything happened in 1985. words don’t mean. numbers mean. tell your gay father he has nothing to do with himself.
–
the wind is asleep. it sleeps outside.
extramural (iv)
uncle has been all day figuring the teeth of his that will never touch. he has this riddle he calls code for what to get the man who has nothing. if I can get him to stop biting his wrists I might be able to chalk something won’t need moved. when I was born, I was small enough to fit in most mouths. uncle is not the tiniest bit mad. he holds babies only when they are hungry and he is not. those with angels think those without are selfish.
extramural (v)
the people are looking for something that tells them what to show. my father can’t hear the storm for the honey on his knees. at birth, a blown eardrum gives the kid a way out of making friends. a sermon about washing a mountain with a rock takes a word from my mother’s mouth. grief is a good listener.
pain is under the impression it’s on the move.
the brain
a fire
that cannot
spread.
in a world of non-competitive
seizing
I show my son
how to waste
his hand
on the hand
signal
that called away
vandalism’s
angel.
I didn’t know I was naked until I had somewhere to be.
can one get pregnant from being pregnant?
I use the dream to ask god about the dream I keep having. my son falls down the stairs while holding a baby girl. I am too late but not too late to piss the blood from his toes because his arms are broken. the baby is nowhere to be found and I have no one to contact. my son is going in and out of sleep and I tell myself this is the end of my outsider status. I’d start my day but god needs more time.
alone
I can cover
two handprints.
the rooms my father enters are bugged.
mother is dumb from pretending
to hit her head.
talking is hell. hell belongs
to a little
devil
that shrinks.
you throw a cell phone at a dog, okay.
pick up the phone
and find
the dog.
let god think
he sees
our puppets.
i.
the ghost
suddenly aware
of sleep
goes on
to be
the same size
awake.
ii.
will never bite. never ask
someone
taller
to bend
the branch
down.
iii.
as far as hands go, these are very large.
memory proves god
in that it proves
god
is lazy.
she oversees bathroom breaks for the crucified.
I was born without a twin.
it gets so you can’t throw a rock without having a baby. not all of us talk this way but you have to hand something to the ones that do. I’ve seen voodoo dolls with more personality. had my mother’s god been my father’s, I would’ve gone blind from staring at my birth.
recently written:
eating the animal back to life, 316 pages, poems-
http://www.lulu.com/shop/barton-smock/eating-the-animal-back-to-life/paperback/product-22277755.html
recently spoken:
interview by Sarah Marcus of Gazing Grain Press-
recently touched by:
The Sugar Book, by Johannes Goransson
Keen, by Lauren Gordon
Ohio Violence, by Alison Stine
kingsoftrain 