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 *******.

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.