have self-published a new full-length collection, 115 pages, title of Misreckon, in three parts: god had an earache / wrong about my brother / misreckon. book preview on site is the book entire.

it is, here:

http://www.lulu.com/shop/barton-smock/misreckon/paperback/product-21954246.html

sample poems

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.


how the still recall the poor

when saying her name, mother would insist the curse words were silent. for swallowing secrets, father had his throat professionally cut. I remember wiping my nose with a shirt darker than blood. instead of good washrags, we had words brought about by having company. mother ran wild through my sentences while father bent to kiss a pillow for sleeping with my stomach. apocalypse came and came. the act was the act’s debut.


men hermetic

the crow
the fine print
of nowhere.

the bomb shelter
the rumored locale
of a mother’s
laundry room.

the bare cross
the teething
toy
a baby
bypasses
for the neck
of the woman
waiting
for her junk
to fall.

the mare
the anxious
bike.