from Misreckon (December 2014)
http://www.lulu.com/shop/barton-smock/misreckon/paperback/product-21954246.html
untitled (v)
I do worry that this love for all things will keep from you the name of the creature dreaming
cessation psalm
the less said about god’s addiction to brevity
as heard
by the angel
of birth
entry psalm
I can’t speak
to how
the form
my father’s
form
mimics
is able
to take
from lightning
a licking
while whaling
on the snout
of what
was born
muzzled
then sewn
for safekeeping
into the belly
of a punching
bag…
(I am not
the one
my meditation
needs) violence
is my brother’s
music
inquiry psalm
when it comes to humoring
me
by name
my memories
draw a blank.
I had a daughter
and three
sons.
my hands
could’ve been
the hands
of an umpire.
in the untouched church
of suicide
was the untouched
church
of pedophilia.
it’s like seeing
a television
on tv. the comedians
and their failed
sisters.
do your thoughts
still take
the temperature
of god?
anterior
three sisters
old enough to date
enter a house
their father
can’t find. a bit of my mother
is seen
in this woman
going out of her way
to give satan
directions. a drug dog
on its last legs
inspects a used
vacuum cleaner, the lawnmower
of lost
men.
site
I lasso the calf just before it makes the ocean.
overhead, a helicopter
from my past
spins.
my son says
to himself
this isn’t
your father’s
sandcastle.
luck is the stone
that marks
the dream. dream
the stone
that marks
the dead.
the dream
the body
has
again
in which
the dream’s
body
seizes
with presence, the nerve
end’s
wake
the lost baby
for a moment
is doom’s
afterlife.
I don’t think I can be kind anymore.
alone time
is patience
as melodrama. the second coming
of my father’s belief
is a memory
that talks to itself
while saying
don’t make of me
a habit.
dear godless koan,
my wheelchair has an ashtray.
wear a cheap mask
to bed.
kid, your mama
she can’t
touch a baby
without touching
a baby
that’s hers.
small brain,
I have less
to wash.
by the time a god brings itself to bury the legless creature that in its death rises to the top of the aquarium’s dream, there are already so many things fish and fish-like, there and not, scoring
for proof
of god…
the grave of my grave is thought
suicide
writes of you
in third
person
–
if played too long
hide and seek
becomes hide
and hide
–
I crawl in one ear
and you
the other
as the name
of the insect
escapes
god
–
our love of dolphins…
a cigarette butt
misses its mark, the largest
head
the child’s
ever
had…
the shut-ins
meet their food
halfway
the angels
burn only
the books
they’ve time
to read
it snows, churchbell
snows
on the crippled glow
of an Ohio
cemetery
where later
I’ll brush
a white hand
from the arm
of a stone
cross
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 can hear your ears
it crawled out of me and knew your birthday
kingsoftrain 