because I can cool his head with mine.  

-

he clucks, I cluck.  we are deep into our clucking.

-

from space.  the same way it comes to animals.

-

that other thing is between you and god.

-

item:  a nicotine patch, from father’s arm, in the event you find yourself playing with dolls.

-

item:  we don’t have that kind of time.

-

object sadness, not yet coined, is a peephole I can’t put my finger on.

-

colloquialism is more than extra love for the hatchet.

-

there’s nothing left to swallow the tip of his tongue.

since being found, father busies himself helping mother locate her copy of the report of missing person.  if sister thinks hard enough about puberty she can pick a lock.  she treats her fingers as if they’ve fallen into the wrong hands.  paints her nails with white out.  

I clean only at night.  I scrub severely the bottoms of my feet in the event I start retracing my steps.  any thought I have lasts as long as any thought god has

on volunteering.  my one friend became my friend by feeling up the top half of a train tied mannequin I’ve come to believe has been falsifying evidence.

in the book of mild love, a capital letter cares for a typo.  it is not a caring one might do for a newborn, the sick, or for a felon who as a newborn was often sick.  this is also in the book of mild love, which tells us how to care.  

my father was arrested on the tarmac but not before he’d placed the miniature of our city beneath a grounded plane.  when interrogated as to what he’d accomplished, he said he’d successfully placed a miniature of our city beneath a grounded plane.

my father calls his legs hangers-on.  it is not a joke to him like the joke of his botched execution.  my father gave me the book of mild love because he thought it was the best joke-book I could get my hands on.  in the book of mild love, I am given an example of a suicide note and asked to scan it for typos.

my mother’s password is entrepreneur.  it is spelled backward and written across the front of her lazy eye’s lid.  in the widely read book of furious welfare, it is recommended that the initiator of any staring contest be you.  she looks at me as if I’ve thrown a tiny pink bird from a moving car’s window because I have.  I was chewing the bird to keep from laughing at my brother, his nose in the book of I am on drugs.

my father won’t teach from the book of ***.  not once does it mention the bomb.

in the child’s game of doctor we were often short staffed.  many had mothers ill and fathers newly sober.  on my last Monday I was working a double shift as patient A and patient C.  on my break I watched patient B die so quickly I was sure she was faking.  I called for the doctor and patient B gave me this far away look as if she had just recalled the actual location of a wheelchair.  C wouldn’t make it, and B was given that location long before the lot of us could fathom.

20% off all print books on Lulu through the 18th with coupon code of LULU20

also, I have three remaining signed copies of my chapbook [infant*cinema], published by **** Press-  will send for free to anyone interested in writing a review- make request to bartonsmock@yahoo.com

~

some poems, recent and from available collections:

[asker]

I’d put something
in my mouth
and my nose
would bleed
and mom
would press
my ribs
and know
like that
the name
of the boy
buried
a horseshoe

-

return is a drug

hunger
a choice

-

and the lord said one of these animals is a writing machine
and the lord

he turned
the woman’s
shadow
into a garbage
bag

and the man’s
into water

-

sister dragged onto some dance floor
a scarecrow

-

pregnant / is what you get

if memory
remembers
to eat

~

[plain sight]

a hearse emerging from the shadow of a school bus

/ a mother
trying
to return
a baptized
mannequin

/ that poorly
lit
bait shop
star

~

[example]

after leaving its memory to the hibernating bear, the insect died.  I don’t know what story you’re trying to tell.  the angel has three fathers.  the angel was born to blackmail a ghost.  this bald ******* thinks I need shown how to chew my fingernails.  the mask is my elevator and the pig my coffin.  I have a sister was made to make an egg disappear.  a father who’d shave to give the thing in the stomach time to plan its escape.  the angel vomits into a pink wheelbarrow.  shows affection.    

~

[residua]

the hymn

in all its
cephalic
worry

has me thinking
bathrobe
while saying

statue / why

always
this dream
I join
others

to find
a small
body / death

had a spoiled
child

~

[distant]

the child you won’t have because the child hates surprises. the story, your mother’s, of the pillow that struggled like an owl. the werewolf, humble, and afraid of clowns. the ramblings of a newborn. the twin boys of Cain.

from Eating the Animal Back to Life [ poems July 2015 ]

collection is available here:  http://www.lulu.com/shop/barton-smock/eating-the-animal-back-to-life/paperback/product-22277755.html

currently, Lulu is offering a 20% discount on all print books with coupon code of SPENDLESS20



[in the beginning]

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.
 
[fishing hand]

a demon with three days to live is given to my father’s body.  in this, father finds luck to be neutral.  mother is a good explosion, brother is a bad.  when the dust settles, sister can see the baby in her stomach.  it is my belief and it is also god’s that our food is the food we forgot to poison.  to pray, I am left with little more than an animal’s halo and two representations of what you were not seriously clawed by.  in your sleep, you move me into mine.  a finger shows itself to the back of my throat.


[themes for star]

in a small attic
a boy
on all fours
being weakened
by a spider’s
dream
is putting
an ear
to the roof
of his sister’s
dollhouse.  for making

the wrong
sounds
for animals
poor sister
was lowered
into the baby
you were born
to lift
by two
scarecrows
you’d think
were separated
at death
for the way
they don’t
carry on.


[race]

says poverty
someone
at this table
has nothing to hide.

says father
touching
a UFO
cures frostbite.

says mother
open
the stomach
of the winning
monster.


[cope]

no one goes to the crazyhouse
for having a hand
that repeats
itself.

in a new place
my brother
does one
of two
things:

masturbates
or says
déjà vu.  

if he didn’t tell me
I wouldn’t know
I’ve slapped myself
awake.

one of us
then one of us
will die.

sister
she yanked
her finger
from the dream
of a dollhouse
telescope
and went on
to preach

-

(Cain is a girl’s name)

-

death
it wants
your son
it wants
the patience
violence
has

in creek bed acoustics    
one can hear    
an altercation
between two men
on a bridge.

when the lesser man
falls     he does not bounce.

one might think the man’s wallet
is a fish     on its side.

the guts of the fish
reveal two thumbs
of two young boys
each on a separate path
with money

for fast food
though none
to remove it.

it is god’s job to keep the world flat.  I stand on a wheelchair to change a light bulb while my brother goes down a hill on the sled sister disappeared from.  my parents are the bread and body of arguing sweetly.  they eat only when there is more food than can be thrown away.  I am hoping the sled does for my brother the nothing it did for me.

the hymn

in all its
cephalic
worry

has me thinking
bathrobe
while saying

statue / why

always
this dream
I join
others

to find
a small
body / death

had a spoiled
child

history is a timeline of appetite.  I have rubber bands at the ready for when my mother yawns.  I cover my baby brother like a grenade.  he was born without the potential for further muscle tone.  father calls what I do context.  I appear like a bruise into a delayed game of hot potato.  my sister’s hands are an oven mitt’s dream.  I know you’re a hitchhiker and your girlfriend a cannibal but here we **** our thumbs.

I am born
back to back…

god removes the mirror from my mother’s mirage

the fact that no one is watching the movie is good for the baby.  my wrist hurts and so far not a single pill has cleared the mouth-hole of your mask.  you’ve seen your mother but not since she got that haircut for which her eyes are still too big.  god exaggerates.  the choices were, and are, eat or learn a language.

three teeth fall from the mouth of my lover.
     I catch them in a dark rag.

my lover hops in place on the leg she calls ecstasy.
     she lifts her skirt and with it
pats her chin.

I fold the teeth into the rag and the rag becomes a rat.
I place the rat in a patch of sunlight and there we watch it die.
we agree
it’s dramatic.

     we know the rat will again be a rag.  that the teeth
having been something else
will reappear
as teeth.

A movie died and I wanted to write better.
You put a lake in a lake.
Whole childhoods
of an angel
went nowhere.
I binged
for my brother
body horror
from an invisibly
watched
loneliness.
Mom
gave us mom.

I swim and the body means nothing.
Nakedness. Hungry at its own feast.
I should’ve touched
more animals.
There are no bombs
if the dead give birth.

we are in the wooded areas
when the taken baby
returns
to the crib

our numbers decrease
unnoticeably  

     think
a stage curtain’s hook
or the many palms
that draw
a womb
to kick

     (of slow black dogs long with youth / of a shadow
beneath a snake
where even)

silence
trails off

insomnia
is the stone
I move
from the hand
that forgets it
to the hand
that remembers
nothing.

sleep’s
reactionary
phobia
of loss
comes to me
in a dream.

the distance from you to me
is still
god.  to what

your sight
has touched
I appear
visible.

as recalled, my childhood
has very little
on the illness
it took
to process

yours.

for sale by owner.  rooms the rooms where nothing happened.  outside had been for so long a black boy shot.  a certain, rote by now, blood draw.  during which was brought the inability to dream.  having come so far, drop of rain.  heart in a mirror.  father talking but not until my bare heels touch the pool’s bottom.  the first pass of a delivery drone over a likeness of mother.  to the church of the secret church.  nightly upkeep of cross.  torture **** as paper cut.  in conversation, my medical supplier.  no one enters a burning house to retrieve the word of god and she’s not poor enough to have a baby.  to self-healing.  the gaming profile a ghost logs into.  a syringe plucked from a lucky raccoon.

the smallest body
I have
belongs
to my brother.

using a toddler
drawn
picture
of his heart
I trace
his heart.

after he passed
he was diagnosed
retroactively
with inattentional
blindness.

he had only just begun
to covet
my beliefs.

this was after your brother had died everywhere

I was calling shotgun for poverty’s mistress
during a game of shirts and skins

I think by then
jesus had fed
nearly two of the five
thousand
with a sunburn
and an ambulance

& most animals were still having four dreams)

anyway, something flew into your mother’s mouth
and the look on her face
told nobody
it had teeth

here is my uncle
smoking
as he throws
the same small fish
back in the water.

here is the cat
that he cared for
and the neighbors
who put it to sleep.

memory
has all the time in the world.

     just when it’s getting good
the book of Genesis
begins.

I stay for my father’s voice.

three babies are carried from church
for crying, or one baby
for crying
thrice.

     slanted paths
of ash
pass in front
of a screen door
like tiny crows
absolved
of warning.

in house, an old man
places himself as a witness
to the controlled burning
of a wooden
porch swing     and misremembers
his best friend
as his best friend god.

there will be
no more
death*

announced
a wasp

to the lot of us
come to patch
my mother’s
roof-

then a fourth
strange thing
happened

     mother covered
with a black cloth
the empty
birdcage

(-)

existence is the wrong inquiry.  I was destroyed by an angel

for having
taste buds.

a pinkness has always gone on without me.

suicide
is death’s
unicorn

trained
to be homesick
the animals
disappeared.  dad advised

we get out
the way
of frost, let it get

to what it’s got
to chew.

we stayed inside mostly and hollered
loud enough
for mailmen
to hear

nicknames
like little
baby
bathwater
my favorite

from the year
god’s voice
changed.

i.

I put two boys to sleep.  before they go, I ask them to picture the person living in my car.  the boys, then,

(to reappear in the adventures of father time limit)

are off.        

ii.

it crosses me that the person in my car is trapped.  is this your car, is this where you put it…

I would have to answer
yes.  

iii.

the night she wasn’t killed
is not unlike
the night
she also
wasn’t

iv.

the night it rained I boiled water in the darkness outside of my mouth.

a mattress slid by, out of reach, and on it

something was whiter or something

glowed.

a deformed salesman
with dog

worries
that maybe
god
has burned
again
her paw

on the cauldron
of rubber
hands, worries

more
that god
will publish

mother’s
books, the two

on gestural
dieting

autism     to blame

for the white     in white

male

     (I blame)

***

for shared     abstinence     (I blame)

my former     self     for my

former
transference     my baseline

jumper     on

poverty     the gnome

in your front yard     on tough

interior

art

there’s a monster
at the beginning
of this book
on aversion
therapy

this book I read
to myself
under god
that I might note
ahead of time

the diminishing returns
of a son’s
departure

I left quietly
the pet store
of haunted animals.

a drifter preaching polyamory
took mental note
of my appearance.

a man was my father.

for Miles J. Bell*

like he’s laying
yellow
on his road
out of grief
brother
takes a drag
and keeps it
until his head
is underwater
is what they call
with apples.

his eyes
have always been
two poverties
unexplored.  he is old, alien’s

heaven
he is old
but not before
he knows it.

a street vendor’s cup game in three geese.

a slim parade.  even the clowns.

a bus stop where you can  
brush your hair.  

a girl’s arm
based on
loosely
others.

a cell phone beside a dog.  ringing, then not.

a notice, a nail-  the police cannot save them all
they are leaves
after all.

a returned
front room
window.  left to right
the life
in it;  the van of flowers.

writing her leg:  dear leg, I’ve written
your cast.  

two men saying yep.  then nothing.  then a third man
late with
yep.

divorce.  but I would be remiss
to drop
its equal-
a baton.                        

candy wrappers at the base of an oak
we call
tree.  

a boy walking his fingers into his mother’s purse.  a boy and a purse

that abandoned year.

I can’t write about angels when I’m drunk.  my father’s blood

dries
on the hand
of a mannequin
in a shop
I no longer
own.  the drugs I take

I take only
when brother
has a bike.

the angels I refer to

refer
to my mother’s
bib.

in the scene,
I happen upon
an off-duty
cop
whose leg
is pinned
beneath
a vandalized
carousel
horse.

the kid
I carry
on my back
stirs
in my father’s
sleep
and I’m in
my brother’s
tree

again

dropping
the cigarette
that will miss
my mom.  

I’ve started the cry
that can’t
begin.

I burn
sticks
for dreaming
dogs

/ forgiveness

you empty
crow

father
son
I saw them ****
out of hunger
the angel
could prepare
angel

-

it is wholly birdlike
the thought
that brings oil
to god

-

the sleeping alien
is not without
its headless
astronaut  (the first thing

-

one sees
hallucinates

the owl-headed man
what
can he do
in the crocodile’s
dream
of disappearing
lamb
but watch
the egging
of a hearse…

Ohio
a woman
found dead
in a cake

after the mugging, my father was asked
to describe the assailant

a man with a gun
who looks like
he’s just seen
two
ghosts-

I am still waiting to hear about my son’s color.
he’s been in the bath for hours.
his pruned fingertips
for him
are a first.

I would rather come from soot
than dream.

fish
fishing
for grief
idk
I always
cried
near spiders
so made
to display
their hunger

before the feast
there is one
erasing
the doll’s
eyebrows

the hostile witness
left her dorm room
to the daughter
I always wanted.

my son secretly existed
to burn live music.

the baby had nothing between its ears.

my wife saw the light
that was god
that to her
was bait.

god’s brain was devoured by a stone.

I saw my father. he was on his second bird.

his teeth were yellow.
or yellowish.

little doors, little me.

a room of real yellow.

sad prom music** (i)

the boy is wearing heels because he doesn’t live with his mother.  his right ankle pops and he breaks his nose on a puddle of evil.  a machine with a baseball in it shudders.  we throw cigarette butts at a girl jumping rope.  the boy stops what his eyes continue.


sad prom music (ii)

movie on with no one in it.  you scratch your son’s arm.  he is made of train sounds you make yourself.  the movie is terrible but is surely just as terrible far away.  you are not waiting to hear anything god hasn’t said better to doctors young and old.  you’re not drunk but your eyes are.  a nightlight in every outlet.

dear pilot of my father’s animal

dear tree
the ahistoric
ghost

dear space
blood

the soldier's father sleeps so as not to be occupied by the exhaustion of a civilian whose mother was killed for harboring a pedestrian insomnia inside of her daughter who was removed from the war for shooting at herself and missing and for shooting at herself and missing again-

I have to pull her bullets from the no eyed mule my memory puts to work.  father is a blindfold.  the soldier not a homeland.