An impossible stone. And in the stone the middle sick child of noise. And in the child a clueless crow. Now strikes now. Pain only remembers tomorrow. I won't create god. He keeps asking. The extent of my knowing is that I know it is there, the thing my life interrupts. She, her, field. Leaving on an Ohio road a mouse to invent ice. The angels are fine. Miracles are terrifying.
I am in the way of way. Why would doom be fast? I sleep or love you
The turn-takers god and sleep. Southern attempts at non graphic violence. A mother’s pet wasp. A boy not able to overhear. Spider spelling psalm. An allness. Apple bones and future lambs.
Empty stomach, crow with a crushed heart. Owl, dark ambulance. This is in Ohio where an ear swam into my ear. Where god won’t visit pain and pain will a graveless cemetery in the field of my sex. I’ll love almost anything. Blank moment, distracted by the present. Our first past.
I put my father’s ear to a leaf. Listen for the salt in my mother’s knee. Place a handgun on the pillow that god rolled under. Leave with a dog that can’t hear thunder.
I fear my body. Shape sends flowers to a ghost. They arrive, then don’t.
the valley of insect the lost plural the funeral we held for a pill the low priest of wrist pain his bad back snow snow
PRIVATELY SELF-PUBLISHED WORKS (hard copy, pay what you want): Animal Masks On the Floor of the Ocean, 124 pages poems, June 2019 can be purchased via paypal (bartsmock@gmail.com) or Venmo @Barton-Smock-2 or CashApp $BartonSmock MOTHERLINGS, 52 pages poems, June 2019 can be purchased via paypal (bartsmock@gmail.com) or Venmo @Barton-Smock-2 or CashApp $BartonSmock an old idea one had of stars, 58 pages poems, February 2020 can be purchased via paypal (bartsmock@gmail.com) or Venmo @Barton-Smock-2 or CashApp $BartonSmock rocks have the softest shadows, 237 pages poems, Dec 2020 can be purchased via paypal (bartsmock@gmail.com) or Venmo: @Barton-Smock-2 or CashApp: $BartonSmock untouched in the capital of soon, 187 pages poems, Sept 2021 can be purchased via paypal (bartsmock@gmail.com) or Venmo: @Barton-Smock-2 or CashApp: $BartonSmock blood to bathe us in its blue past, 217 pages poems new and selected, May 2022 can be purchased via paypal (bartsmock@gmail.com) or Venmo: @Barton-Smock-2 or CashApp: $BartonSmock apartures, 125 pages poems, January 2023 can be purchased via paypal (bartsmock@gmail.com) or Venmo: @Barton-Smock-2 or CashApp: $BartonSmock *All collections are pay what you want, BUT be sure to include your mailing address in the comments of the order, and ALSO be kind...for instance, if you are ordering 100+ page book of poems, like, $5.00 is probably not a kindness. Also, all my work is posted online on kingsoftrain.com for free. Any questions, including inquiring about a free copy for review or free PDF copy, can be directed to bartonsmock@yahoo.com
God forgets things before they happen. In third or fourth grade, I was pulled out of a bathroom stall by a boy who’d been nice to my mother and I was told what should or should not be in my stomach. There was another boy with him. A city named Empty and a city named Goldfish took turns burning. I missed the future. The past, more.
Flashlight tag in a church. I sat in a back pew and kicked touchingly at a form I was sure belonged to my brother. Brother stayed quiet and put. I kicked him twice more, harder, trying to find a rib. Nothing. Came that little moon. Came that egg from paper fog. Time was ending. Our youth counselor limped out of somewhere, rubbing her elbows, testing an eye. Brother said where his body was. I felt left.
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