[childhood (i)]

the body of jesus
pulled from the sea

~

[childhood (ii)]

I am, in the dark of an unwashed submarine, kissing his head

like it had
a message.

~

[lost priest]

I come from a place where a school bus hits a dog and the bus driver barks and all her kids play dead

~

[poem]

remember to rub them, the hands of the slow learner.

and to say their prayer

the one for the bald princess

& her child’s
perfect
somersault

~

[each ear is an only child]

shaped
by a scarecrow
barber
known
to cut straws
for quiet
angels

the last robot to name its baby.

two smokers
back-to-back
in the high
corn.

the spoonfeeder’s ferris wheel.

litterbug’s
shadow.

[the book of boy]

/ be the buzzard a shadow stuck in a trash bag

/ be the knees full of milk

~

[boy in darkness]

blood is a movie and none of it

yours

~

[reader]

of everything
his writing
destroyed

~

[wreath]

i.

upstairs
the last
to go

ii.





iii.

door
is so
forgetful

~

[nostalgia while we wait]

no god. no wind.

sick son’s kite.

the pea

asleep…

[parade for sorrow]

I miss
blinking



[imp]

the man digging in his yard is looking for his dog. this is my lucky window. in this much silence, a baby could get a tooth. a mom a finger if a car door slams. the man digs and the ice comes for its heartbroken road. wounds move in a deerless world.



[born]

disguised
as

as if
I would know



[access verses]

a classroom, a house

but never
the ghost
of a church

–

the boys
they play
scarecrow
loves
horse, and the girls

the shepherdess
on a boat
names her dog

–

hey, distance

lose
the baby

(says
the empty
box)



[holding the baby]

a deleted voicemail of a boy asking his mom how to prepare a past meal. my handwriting an insect I want the best for. dream and the moth it won’t finish.



[vespers]

them raccoons out there is tarrying

up

yr bible

–

tearin

–

border: my eyes can’t stop what the back of my head is eating

mirror: a godless hyphenate

–

my man is a body whose moon is vacant

–

they is out there to flood

sightseers

with basilisk

****

–

in the valley of my choking
the fingers of my father
are going
dog’s-collar
purple

–

out-the-way churches. and acne



[declination]

in forgetting how many to save, god wants to know

are you still
seeing

things…

I remember the animal, the appropriate

mask…

once held, is the baby
less
wild

is the room
in the room



[sympathizer]

the many plain
sons
of god
their parking

tickets



[the mud on god's cheek]

at birth we are given a ladder we can’t see.

our feet

bare



[animal masks on the floor of the ocean]

mouse, teacup of the missing stork-

owl, lamb of night-

this was god. he was sad and everyone noticed.

my body at three years old
is being carried
to a mailbox
by my mother
who blizzard
or no
puts her ghost
on the map

a boy in a diaper
covered in flour

a sadness specific to elevators

cocoon
on every
menu

I have a camera
sets a trap
for silence

an animal
you can borrow

a full-grown scarecrow

death’s first parrot

I have children, a suicidal thought
that can love
up to three

a pilot’s
paper seashell

[transformative melancholies]

frog
in the throat
of a lowing
cow

dad, smoking

two nearby deer
nosing that headlight
into place

poem is dead

~

[her father, his pipe]

all

them broken
babies
of tornado

drills…

eat, she says
to a fog
machine

~

[mom is using after the dream a home pregnancy test as a microphone]

I am counting
the realest
sheep-

my brother’s toothbrush
good as new

in my broken
hand

~

[the rapture]

grief is grief because it attempts to mourn the infinite. my leg’s blood becomes a branch. I breathe and think I’m eating.

~

ALSO

I have a new, privately self-published chapbook/exploration titled {the accepted field} that I’m making available for free for about a month to the first 10-20 people that request it. if interested, message me on here or at bartonsmock@yahoo.com with a physical address.

I can dream my son’s weight in birdseed

bird
the swimmer’s
bread

[a spider, worried]

this cloud from a father’s mouth
before it is ruined
by some kid
who’s learned
recently

her shapes
and not

to smoke

~

[levitations]

mom is trying to iron a spacesuit

car horns
they foil
hypnosis

~

[father with his stomach missing]

a fishhook left in a dream

a peeping
tom’s
basilisk

~

[lightning storms]

in a wedding dress
worn once
and haunted
by paper cuts

going
at her dolls
with a fork

[in the past I am describing god to my attacker]

I don’t take good care of things.

I can’t even give you
examples.

~

[dead child]

the future
the past
both are ready

to talk

~

[late poem]

one can only write so long
about loss
in pencil

find my house,
dog-on-fire

~

[reading and writing]

which one of us did loneliness hear coming?

i.

amnesia
the perfume
of a dead
ghost

ii.

sleepwalkers
for a more
christ-like

hand signal

iii.

blue hound at a pilot’s grave

does nothing
in hell
but draw

the insomniac
the conductor
of the sleepwalker’s
train

the centipede
a sort of
wrecked
spider

bunny-eared
watersnakes…

god
took all
my mom’s
ideas

I don’t know why it is that this thing in my father merely comes loose when in me it disappears, but am grateful that my mother can hear him getting ready for church no matter the rattling of my hunger at the weepy shapelessness of spoons.

it does what it can
the world
to belong.

I saw a wheelchair
chase
an ambulance.

babies don’t know
they can’t be
alone.

we peopled this.

[repairs]

the past
misses
your child
also

~

[beauty]

you look like someone
who’s not
famous

god

before he died

~

[campestralia]

i.

hailstorm a midwestern cairn for cracked eggs

hiccup
the small
afterlife

ii.

figures, maternal
step naked from a.m. houses
scream
to be
collected, we’ve all seen

the rooster
reenter
the clock

iii.

birth, go to heaven-

god
is time’s
way
of showing
history

that death
has no
experience

iv.

and the pestersome
bats
are asleep

in the cross
of Ohio
crows

~

[tongue]

a prop
fingerprint
from the object’s
dream
of being
touched
or a pig
that gets
fire
to keep
a diary

~

[empty]

grief
has a swimmer’s
stomach

cavity
a clock
dreamt
by a scar.

the scalpel
the ear’s
idea.

birthplace, hide your own.

no animal
harmed
in the making
of god.

[fealties]

mowing the lawn
dad swallows
a bug.

sister is folding her eyelids back
and brother

his diaper
stays on.

mom on a small map
is making
noise.

the animals are what god sees
in animals. soon

a birthmark
on a tooth.

~

[would you say, mouth]

that god
made a deal
with nothing

~

[god is silent in every language]

mom is driving. mom is washing the spider that closed her mouth. sister has a stick of gum but says she doesn’t. dad is half-asleep and cutting the fingernails of the babies he dropped. there’s a scab on my arm that looks like my brother’s nose. we pass church after church. sound horn for buried bees.

choking
inside
a whale

/ sucker
from the world
of hands

image
made
no beast.

think of it-

death
was human

[windowless the museum of weight loss]

brother puts the basketball under his shirt so he can light my cigarette.

we born
to miss
animals.

[under god]

we are photos
of a dreamless
fact

[annihilatives]

this dream again where no one likes me

the overeater I sleep for

[infancy]

who is my brother?

a boy
fishing
from a ruined
helicopter

–

where is my sister?

being seen
by a ghost

–

am I alone?

dumbfounded
by rest

–

has anyone called my mother?

these tracks belong to the animal

drinks
from your father’s

bowl

–

is there a name?

for some
words

–

tell me there’s a church.

small to a turtle

[upside]

/ this talk of home

/ bush of the hissing baby

/ snow

that can see
blood
in the dark

/ events

my body
held

/ first haircut,

broom, crucifixion

[boy lord]

boomerang,

the toy of the lonely and the gospel

of the weak
dog…

perfection
is bad
art

[war footing]

a parrot
sawed in half
by peace
or quiet

~

[ballerina]

dog whistle, nothing’s church-bell:

my mother, handcuffed

still worships
wasp

~

[mothers, acoustic]

we are maybe
inside
an Ohio
factory

childless and ready

for a refresher
on orphan
etiquette-

word is
there came
a cow
from the nothingness
that drank
nowhere’s
father

and sleep
is death’s
babysitter

~

[darker farms]

food
saved
from a house
fire

–

the cult following of nostalgic paranoids

–

a star, this deer

as it prays
for moth

~

[annihilatives]

the first murdered woman was not killed by her sister.

stop me
if you’ve not
heard

~
~

also, {name calling} is my newest self-published poetry collection

it is available on Lulu

book preview on site is book entire

free PDF is available. also, free hardy copy available for review.  both upon request.

poems, from it, are below:

~
~

[entries for listen]

mirror
to window
we’re moving
away

~

[entries for fixation]

the name of this scar
is
they couldn’t hide
the canoe

mom says there’s an oven
at the bottom of every lake

that I was born asleep
surrounded
by toe touchers

is art
world-building
for the geeks
of grief

have you crucified

starfish

~

[entries for children]

remember, it is dark and memory is god painting with the blood of those he would create

food on my plate, I am always one suicidal hairdresser away from my past…

lead your lives, touch

[cognate]

to build something inside the church
they had to close
the church

those who wouldn’t normally disappear
were said to be helping

shape began its story
with veal
and ended
with the man
dad choked
for nine
months

I imagined
foreign
injurious
objects
and my brothers

spoke
from a sandbox
of seeing

a late
deer

on the roof
of a nursing home

~

[supplication]

is voice
the shadow
of song

swimmer
whose blood
has feathers

~

[notice]

hooked on silence, oh sleep

/ long before its descent into me

~

[apple]

in defense of snake, this is my mom’s curling iron

/ ghost
a vacancy
I cannot
dismiss

~

[we got our hands on some fingerprints and did not feel poor]

the invisible man’s ghost, them polaroids

of sister’s
feet…

dream differently, microphone

~

[god and time are the same age]

a child, an oven

how both
distract
touch

~

[annihilatives]

go home, sadness

–

of exposure
to birth

~

[no kids in Eden]

door to door we are selling knock-knock jokes

I am the body
travel
came with

[otherhood (i)]

loneliness the born artifact of my father’s rented dream. god the hobby of replaced machines. forgiveness the eldest stowaway and mistress of the seasick hologram. the monster you became to attain formlessness. mom a rabbit. her dying frog. hunger erased by what it loves.

~

[otherhood (ii)]

it is not real, of course

the trailer park
on fire, the accepted

field-

wheelchairs
crossing
without us

to present oneself so falsely-

be happy
for the work

it’s no small animal that the world came back for us

only god himself can enter the church of the easily missed

so make
of boy
a stray
being

lost
like you
my memory
twice

/ my death I was here to gather proof

/ my children
to paraphrase

a creatureless forest
in the minds
of men
with shovels; a field.

/ birth outgrew its crooked coat

god
as spotlight

unmanned
or not

what in the history of blood
has blood
discovered

mom is hanging laundry from the future

regret is still looking
for a god

I learn cocoon
and boyishly
cross my legs

the lightning
when you saw it
was it clean

give childhood
some time

let vengeance

travel

/ say it wrong

my name

while whale

watching

our lost
way
of thinking

forgave
different
films

lose them all, dogface

teeth were pills
god couldn’t
swallow

[two koans]

deader
than his animals
that could speak
to language?


[roof love]

alien
to me

were the ashtrays

failed boats
of teeth

for my angry
quiet
brother


[rattle]

forget, sorrow
your anniversary

in case
you’re not
alone


[firsthand]

are they gone

the cats of the doll-faced arsonist

how does one
earn
loneliness, or slip

from an overlong

baptism


[doll traffic]

it is not a darkness to call it the demon’s untouchable telephone

I’ve referred
to worse
and anyway
time is the gospel
of disappearance

in stories, my brother has a tail
and speaks
mailman

perhaps there’s not enough to do

the tree has horns

the brainwashed and the blindfolded will then switch children
and you will spend a year
a year
at least
throwing a slipper
at a farm machine

dream: grief a mile
grave
an inch…

you won’t eat much
and your eyesight
will trade its crow
for a bar of soap

your father will fake his death
to distract
room service
from his country
roots
and an insect
inside a stick
will die
and the stick
will live

dream:

dream:

dream:

dream:

dream:

dream:

dream:

dream: a mummy obsessed with what doves eat

dream:

dream:

dream:

dream:

dream:

dream:

dream:

drea­m:

dream:

dream:

dream:

dream:

dream: sock puppets on oxygen

the present happens at different times. fetus, comma, tadpole. surgery, please tell this mask

my face went down on nothingness.

asleep
I am headless
in a clawfoot
tub
the half-awake
boy
on my chest
the disoriented
pulse
in the hand
of god

whose nights come to them in food

wrote lullabies
for cocoon
and stuttered

you drive a clown car into a crowd
it is how you mourn
the accidental burning
of a doll’s
body-sock
and this I understand
as a city
kind of thing
as a way to eat
darkness
among friends
darkness
from a stomach
a way to lose
blood’s password
yourself
in bread

as drawn, the boy’s
alien and cow
evoke rescue

dream: a toothless sheepdog is spooning roadkill in a wax museum dedicated to famine

go on, birth
take silence
from a baby

dream: a contortionist on a stretcher

bulimics
at a tortoise
crossing

bring little, for I am a small room.

my clothes are yours and have always been lonely.

from nowhere
came beauty
to avoid
god.

bruise, ye
from nightgown
to blanket.

be kind, history

to those
in my dream.

as drawn, the boy’s
alien and cow
evoke rescue

dream: a toothless sheepdog is spooning roadkill in a wax museum dedicated to famine

go on, birth
take silence
from a baby

poems from my most recent self-published collection {name calling}, available on Lulu:

~

[boy with bible]

scissor his hair
with fingers
from the hand
of your longer
arm

picture him
as a hardscrabble
mystic

gay

/ the frog shepherd

~

[entries for loss]

can we stop this talk of the baby cut in half and ask why this town has two graveyards. show me a dog showing an angel where to dig. the brothers have all gone underwater to raise money for hand signals and the sisters have taken from a tale of snowfall an ****** to amnesia’s headstone. the parts of the movie you look at

vanish. it’s my fault there’s a god.

~

[entries for yield]

in laundromat
my stomach
moves
my bed

my blood wears a blue sock

and a fly goes down on melancholy’s crossword

my sister is here to have gum in her hair
and hair
in her mouth

tooth is the ghost beak is not

mom makes us wear most of it home

the animal’s first time as something else

~

[entries for transformation]

i.

is there blood in something born outside,

a history that works in one ear?

ii.

time touches nothing. is the *** of my bruise

/ a scar

~

[entries for water]

seasons by the look and smell of him being beaten.

a hole in a fingerprint. doll overboard.

~

[a letter, silent]

a letter, silent

dropped by a word
into window’s
bible

–

cot, diving board, empty pool. southernmost

search

for earpiece.

–

medusa

her headless
horseman

suicide
is death’s
unicorn