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June 25, 2024 / barton smock

when I am sober machine

The rains came and the animals were empty. The devil refused to be naked. Canary after crushed canary was rubbed into the body of god. I prayed for you a pregnancy test and a plastic knife. An angel asked me to identify my dental records. I spoke angel.
June 25, 2024 / barton smock

Ethan Hawke letter 11, 062524

Letter 062524 the rabbit’s dream of knowing magic

Dear Ethan Hawke

I am reading Vanessa Angélica Villarreal’s Magical/Realism and its propulsively engaged agonizing has such weight that one can hear lights pop distantly above its interrogated verse. Have you ever reappeared in front of a child who then puts bread in your hand? I eat like a ghost in fast food parking lots. I think of my father’s partner who was deported too many years ago. I drive like my mother. I can’t be elsewhere. My two older sons carry my youngest son everywhere. They place him across his mother’s legs which have both been tricked into falling asleep. A straight line weighs nothing. Nothing, also, when it weeps.
June 24, 2024 / barton smock

Ethan Hawke letter 10, 062424

Letter 062424

Dear Ethan Hawke

There is a tooth you can put in your mouth that will let you see every ghost. Angels use more data than god.
June 23, 2024 / barton smock

Ethan Hawke letter 9, 062324

Letter 062324

Dear Ethan Hawke

Most surgeons are addicted to standing in church. I am wrong with my entire body. I am at the point in my dying where I remember only those things that my children wanted to tell me. Angels stop appearing bc people aren’t where they should be. A groundhog’s heart turns into a star. I call this chapter groundhog pain. There are no doctors who specialize in tunnel hurt. Don’t kill the light. Make it sick.
June 23, 2024 / barton smock

cross machine edit

God can’t critique everything
June 22, 2024 / barton smock

cross machine

God can’t review everything
June 22, 2024 / barton smock

Ethan Hawke letter 8, 062224

Letter 062224

Dear Ethan Hawke

I deleted this letter. This is the new one.
June 21, 2024 / barton smock

Ethan Hawke letter 7, 062124

Letter 062124 

Dear Ethan Hawke

Donald Sutherland to me is the last time I was afraid of long division. Eventually I took over my father’s handwriting. My footprint chooses a footprint then dies. I am stuck on a rabbit and then stuck on a deer. It’s all so lazy. I am a blood clot in god’s undetected loneliness. I watched an entire movie about a bomb and then heard a moviemaker hate me for watching it from home. They keep moving hell. Yeah you’re right, no letter yesterday. Something wasn’t there. I know that now.
June 21, 2024 / barton smock

The ‘I Think I Can’t Speak For Everyone Here’ reading series, Sunday, July 7th, at 3pm EST, featured william erickson and Devan Murphy

The 'I Think I Can't Speak For Everyone Here' reading series is returning in July. Join us for the first July entry on Sunday, July 7th, at 3pm EST

Contact bluejawedsnake@gmail.com for the Zoom link, and to sign-up for the open mic

Featured readers will be William Erickson and Devan Murphy.

william erickson is the author of the collection you don't have to believe in the world (April Gloaming), which is neither a correction, nor especially true. he is watching a hummingbird. he is watching a hummingbird die. he is watching it fly away. william lives with his partner and two dogs at the bottom of Washington state.

Devan Murphy is the author of I’m Not I’m Not I’m Not a Baby (Ethel 2024). Her creative writing and visual art have appeared in The Iowa Review, Diagram, Pithead Chapel, The Guardian, ANMLY, and elsewhere. Originally from Northeast Ohio, she now resides in Pittsburgh. You can find her on Instagram @gytrashh.

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ALSO, upcoming in July:

Saturday, July 13th, 3pm EST: featured Zaynab Iliyasu Bobi and Saba Keramati
Sunday, July 14th, 4pm EST: featured Melissa Eleftherion and Kaylee Young-Eun Jeong
Friday, July 26th, 9pm EST: featured Marylyn Tan and Angelique Zobitz

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Previous readings HERE
June 19, 2024 / barton smock

Ethan Hawke letter 6, 061924

Letter 061924 horrors

Dear Ethan Hawke

I don’t know why it would, but the eye keeps itself alive. The soul is god’s last radical permission. Symbolism a grave for an empty coffin. I’m tired. Not as tired as my clothes. Sound has arms. It can’t miss both.