"barton" poems
“O ‘Melia, my dear, this does everything crown!
Who could have supposed I should meet you in Town?
And whence such fair garments, such prosperi-ty?”—
“O didn’t you know I’d been ruined?” said she.
—”You left us in tatters, without shoes or socks,
Tired of digging potatoes, and spudding up docks;
And now you’ve gay bracelets and bright feathers three!”—
“Yes: that’s how we dress when we’re ruined,” said she.
—”At home in the barton you said ‘thee’ and ‘thou,’
And ‘thik oon,’ and ‘theäs oon,’ and ‘t’other’; but now
Your talking quite fits ‘ee for high compa-ny!”—
“Some polish is gained with one’s ruin,” said she.
—”Your hands were like paws then, your face blue and bleak
But now I’m bewitched by your delicate cheek,
And your little gloves fit as on any la-dy!”—
“We never do work when we’re ruined,” said she.
—”You used to call home-life a hag-ridden dream,
And you’d sigh, and you’d sock; but at present you seem
To know not of megrims or melancho-ly!”—
“True. One’s pretty lively when ruined,” said she.
“—I wish I had feathers, a fine sweeping gown,
And a delicate face, and could strut about Town!”—
“My dear—a raw country girl, such as you be,
Cannot quite expect that. You ain’t ruined,” said she.
2.8k
Mischa Barton
Was given a headstart
On Dolly Parton
In a sackrace
And Won.
May 23, 2014
May 23, 2014 at 9:32 AM UTC
for Barton Smock
I
to see the flooding lake I crawl
through the thicket
I imagined
being the devil’s
garden
as a child
a lake
I first called
blue prison
but now
love
after swimming
lessons grandmother
funded
II
squatting arsonists occupy
the town’s church
during weeknights
I am one of four who knows
*When it burns
I'll steal the stoup*
III
I dream rarely and only in naps
waking,
I try restraining
fantasies of
faceless women
IV
rainstorms brake
the lake’s edges,
muddy the bankside flowers,
leave the canal sullied
forever
looking on, I
recall
generosity
Nov 22, 2012
Nov 22, 2012 at 2:44 PM UTC
THE BLOOD
YOU DON’T SEE
IS FAKE
http://www.lulu.com/shop/barton-smock/the-blood-you-dont-see-is-fake/paperback/product-21206799.html;jsessionid=6D1872B449D8B58E2A7F503E518273FD
new and selected poems / Barton Smock / September 2013
from self published collections:
mating rituals of the responsibly poor
Ahistoric
Aggressive Kin
Hallelujah Lip-Synch
in the asylum we’d sun ourselves with angels
all available at
http://www.lulu.com/spotlight/acolyteroad
Sep 19, 2013
Sep 19, 2013 at 4:30 PM UTC
Christmas Eve, and twelve of the clock.
“Now they are all on their knees,”
An elder said as we sat in a flock
By the embers in hearthside ease.
We pictured the meek mild creatures where
They dwelt in their strawy pen,
Nor did it occur to one of us there
To doubt they were kneeling then.
So fair a fancy few would weave
In these years! Yet, I feel,
If someone said on Christmas Eve,
“Come; see the oxen kneel,
“In the lonely barton by yonder coomb
Our childhood used to know,”
I should go with him in the gloom,
Hoping it might be so.
1.2k
And leave it to Turturro
To steal the movie again,
A tour-de-force in a single character,
Repeatedly, consistently . . .
Except maybe one time.
"Raging Bull" 1980:
Turturro was "Man at Table,"
Uncredited, of course,
A man of no words,
A role difficult, constraining for any
Would-be Richard Burton,
Some shrew-taming Petruchio,
Over the top & out of a job,
Again.
Ask any director who
Directed in the 1950s and 60s?
"Difficult to handle," says Unanimous,
Auteurs & Schlock Filmmakers,
Alike.
Turturro too, needs special handling,
Or Jesus Quintana will chew up the scenery,
Emilio Lopez will be sneaky-sneaky-sneaky,
Materializing without warning over & over
Again.
Turturro: veteran of 60+ films,
*Barton Fink, Miller's Crossing,
Fading ****** The Color of Money,
Do the Right Thing,
O Brother, Where Art Thou?*
Turturro TV: Frazier, Monk & Miami Vice.
And others.
Turturro: a Brooklyn boy, Italian,
Roman-Catholic, the son of Katherine,
An amateur jazz singer who worked in a
Navy yard during World War II, &
Nicholas Turturro, a carpenter &
Construction worker who fought as a
Navy sailor on D-Day.
Turturro: attended the State University of
New York at New Paltz, completed his
MFA at the Yale School of Drama.
A life most worthy, capped off with
Amedeo & Diego, his two sons.
So, I'd like to thank The Academy,
In advance yet decades overdue:
A Lifetime Achievement Award, Johnny.
Recognition over the long haul.
Sep 24, 2016
Sep 24, 2016 at 1:16 AM UTC
When I was a child
they let me run wild
but soon chores
and schoolwork
and clothing
were piled
and lest I forget
parental laws set
my freedom
the ruler
and routine
defiled.
Take all my blues
and send me away
"Your time is coming",
she said, " one fine day"
Inside I'd be singing
that simple refrain:
"and I'll never be back here,
EVER AGAIN!"
If somebody told me
I'd wind up back home
I'd reckon them crazy
and slam down the phone.
Got a couple of years
now to pay of this loan
and a couple beers
down I'd sit and I'd moan
in spite of my troubles
in spite of my own
in spite of the fact
that I'm thin as a bone
In time I will harvest
the seeds that I've sown
I am not goin' back there
So LEAVE ME ALONE!
But one day back here
I did surely arrive
my kit and caboodle
five-oh Barton Drive
reluctantly settled
back into the hive
for no other way
I could see to survive...
Well to be sure
this is just how it goes
tonight I caught Dad
folding up all my clothes
He makes sure I have eaten
and socks on my toes
And of course all my business
everyone knows!
I've ransacked the bedroom
and clogged up the pipes
Let down my hair
aired all my gripes
Reliving my teens
never one of those types
and finally come clean
that I LOVE Wesley Snipes.
Thanks Mom and Dad
for all your direction
you hold up the fort
and offer correction
I've not always taken
your timely advice
Resented the hair cut
in the midst of the lice.
You know me quite well
I'm one bitter pill
but I love you now
and so I always will
and when the door opens
and I take my leave
on me arm I'll be wearing
a damp snotty sleeve.
I thank you both
for taking my crap
for all of your years,
never seen such a sap
once sense and stability
I can regain
I'll never be back here
EVER AGAIN!
Sep 24, 2013
Sep 24, 2013 at 12:38 AM UTC
"Let us rebuild, so that,
we may be no
longer a reproach",… it is just
business/ Nehemiah spake
put this on your business card
directly, in spirit, to David
Barton, inspirational director,
for many a proud warrior for truth.
Jesus lives, we rise, we agree, in me.
Where lay the Kingdom of God, back then,
when he is recorded as having said,
I will, my will being done, abide
side any who hear the knock,
as an innocent, or a lying, cheating scoundrel,
that's the good news, war has never worked,
peacemaking all ways works, one on one.
Honed most point, tip to tip... touch
spirit face to spirit face
messenger to message, dare we say
in the presence of at least as many as
have testified to seeing grave dwellers walking,
most certainly there was darkness, and that curtain,
between the holiest of holies, and every day sanctity,
ripped… rippity re-occurence right down the middle,
opening all reality
to the Wizard
of Oz's most esoteric
special effect
on the ensuing Easter audiences, seeing
it, over and over, until the metaphor, the riddle becomes
dabar, a very humble word translated many ways, see::
Pens with motors are more powerful than swords,
of any sort… logos significant cannot loose dabar yah, we
in this form minding manners men agree to abide beneath,
but
but
but
on good advice,
from bar mitzvahed friends, dead and living,
the use of labor, during interesting times, as mobs
to make unified mind form encase believers in
situations indisputably dangerous, used right
by godfearing law enforcement officers, right
used by a leader exactly, to the hairs on his head,
like the guy on television who crashed all those casinos.
Jun 14, 2025
Jun 14, 2025 at 2:56 PM UTC
empty imagery
Adam had no memory of his first wife. as created, he would look at Eve all day and feel nothing.
empty imagery
the vacation house was found to be owned by another family. in it, my mother resisted arrest.
empty imagery
my father was born with six fingers on his right hand and seven on his left. he was not fond of either hand until later in life when the grandchildren asked him at different times during their visits if he had been tortured.
empty imagery
God created the world because he couldn’t do it on his own. ah, note to self, **** off. person is place. I might’ve killed a man had I not been poking holes in a poem by Barton Smock.
Jun 11, 2013
Jun 11, 2013 at 11:41 AM UTC
I was on a train out of Chorley
Happy to be sad to be leaving
Smalltalking strangers with a great accent
Hot and uncomfortable because my super cool leather jacket wasn't breathing.
Lancashire, you've made me think!
Actually, trains make me feel pensive.
Or was it Mrs Barton?
Bumbling and hypersensitive (in a nice way)
"Remain vigilant through your journey"
"Do not leave your heart unattended or it may be destroyed"
We'll get into Cardiff at zero zero six teen
That's technically Friday; there'll be drunks to avoid.
We're past Crewe and I know
Younger me made the right decision.
The path I sometimes hesitate to follow
Is bold, beautiful and scenically inefficient.
It twists and turns, trees stream
Past the train's windows
The sky looks lovely tonight
A candyfloss cloud for each of my woes (only three or four obstruct the sunset and they make it shine all the softer)
Mother of a lover, you said
You thought you'd never see me again
You often think of me, and will "follow me".
Facebook makes it easy to pretend.
Aug 14, 2017
Aug 14, 2017 at 2:02 PM UTC
my first non self-published work is available at **** Press...I can't post a link here, so you'll have to search it. (a chapbook titled Infant Cinema)
am asking that you help it do some work for the press. it's six dollars.
some reviews:
Barton Smock’s newest book is filled with enigmatic poetry honed to the barest minimum of language, without a scintilla of excess. In one poem and elsewhere, Smock states that he “does not want to be seen as a person,” and the scant information he has shared in various publications and the rare interview certainly reveals little but that he is a father, husband, likes movies, and writes daily. Yet in infant * cinema, poems that first appear as fragmentary and surreal dreams, prayers, visions, or confessions still evoke a completeness that lacks nothing, wants nothing. Smock reveals a world filled with grief, death, suicides, disabling conditions, and a family’s complex relationships across generations. While the poems mention “lonesome objects,” “melancholy,” “numbness,” and “collected sorrows,” Smock’s masterfully minimalist poetry leaves the reader intoxicated by a rush of original details and bleakly exquisite imagery.
~Donna Snyder, author of Poemas ante el Catafalco: Grief and Renewal (Chimbarazu Press) and I Am South (Virgogray Press)
Infant Cinema can only come from the mind of one writer, Barton Smock. I’ve been following his work for 10 years, and the only thing I’ve come to expect for certain is that I will be transported to a world thick with an atmosphere of vivid imagery, and seemingly juxtaposed and ironic concepts. Infant Cinema is prose that has all those elements, and reads with heightened poetic force.
~Joseph Jengehino, author of Ghost of the Animal (Birds and Bones Press)
Apr 16, 2016
Apr 16, 2016 at 1:34 AM UTC
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.
Dec 15, 2014
Dec 15, 2014 at 2:32 PM UTC
Darling,
You were born in the vision of Clara Barton
In the success of Joan of Arc and Malala
In the memory of Anne frank
You were born for greatness
And for remembrance
You were born for more than you will be given
You were born for weightlessness
But given legs of stone to keep you from flying too high
Born with a heart of gold
Painted bronze
You
Were born for beauty
For Mona Lisa’s smile
But felt like Picasso
Rearranged and imperfect
Darling I hate to tell you
But you will never be treated equally to men
I’ve been told I’m stupid because I’m a girl
And I've held the door at gas stations for men who called me baby
And told me I'd be prettier if I smiled
Men will always look at you like property
Like they are owed a piece of you just for existing
Like you're too gentle to fend for yourself
But darling I have news for you
You belong to no one but yourself
You were born in the vision of Clara Barton who never wed
In the success of Joan of arc
Who was only 17 when she was commander of a French army
And Malala who was only 17 when she won the Nobel peace prize for saying words that could have killed her
Anne frank was 16 when she was murdered
Do you think she was thinking of what she owed men?
No. She took a hammer to her legs of stone and peeled the paint from her heart of gold
She was the Mona Lisa's smile
She changed the world
And darling you can do the same
Break through the stone and the bronze
And be the Mona Lisa
But darling
If someone tells you you aren’t smart
Or a stranger tells you you'd be prettier if you smiled
And you start to feel rearranged and imperfect
Remember
Picasso made art too.
Mar 24, 2018
Mar 24, 2018 at 1:22 AM UTC
Awakening at 06:30.
Make the bed in a hurry, wash Your face.
Get ready.
You are at work at 07:30.
It's not a great job, but you don't have another.
Try not to be late.
Insert the card, sign yourself in book of arrivals.
Say “hallo” to colleagues.
When You arrive, drink your coffee.
Struggle like others, you're not the only slave.
Pay attention for a lunch break. Eat something.
Manage out for a couple of aspirins.
**** it up. They own You till 15:30.
Have lunch. Take a bath.
Play up your favorite video game.
Empty up, kick *** of some bad guys.
Reply to a text message from your girlfriend.
Make some plans for a weekend.
Not every weekend is going to be free.
Do not neglect art.
Work on the story.
Write down a few sentences.
Lie down a bit.
Close your eyes. Open them.
Read.
A friend have borrowed You a book.
Take some bite to eat.
At 21:05 play some movie.
Betty Blue, or Barton Fink.
At 23:40 You are already soundly asleep.
You made it…?
Dream.
Mar 24, 2016
Mar 24, 2016 at 9:59 AM UTC
Hit me on the head with a barton
May be it will wake me up from this unending nightmare
or send me on a one way ticket to eternity
Either of the two I will be at peace at last
I know my dream is my cross but sometimes it feels like my curse
I look at it and it looks like the most precious treasure in the world sometimes
But other times I feel like it is making a fool of me
How is it possible that the world isn't seeing what I'm seeing
Or perhaps I'm the one not seeing what they're seeing
My heart is as heavy as a rock
My head is running round and round in circles
I thought I had it figured out
Guess life isn't ready to give in
but days like this aren't new to man or life
It's just one of those days I feel betrayed by my dream
Tomorrow will come and it will bring a new hope
So keep your barton
Cos I already got up.
Aug 17, 2015
Aug 17, 2015 at 1:06 PM UTC
Adam had no memory of his first wife. as created, he would look at Eve all day and feel nothing.
-
the vacation house was found to be owned by another family. in it, my mother resisted arrest.
-
my father was born with six fingers on his right hand and seven on his left. he was not fond of either hand until later in life when the grandchildren asked him at different times during their visits if he had been tortured.
-
God created the world because he couldn’t do it on his own. ah, note to self, **** off. person is place. I might’ve killed a man had I not been poking holes in a poem by Barton Smock.
-
my brother says it’s part of his condition that he can only explain himself from the waist down. he says he feels horrible in the back of his head and wants me to take a look. he says I don’t know what darkness is. before I can play doctor he remembers he has a story he wants me to write. the outline of the story is off site. in the opening scene brother recalls that a young man is blowing dust from a human skull made of plastic because it’s all the narrator can afford.
-
the head itself was an afterthought. had god not allowed the soul to come up for air, beauty would have been spared our invention.
-
a single mother is a twofold mirage. please argue above her quietly. her legs collapse. her child comes first.
-
your sister is the only person I’ve recorded to have been born without a gift. I was told this in confidence by an angel masquerading as a small animal the size of which escapes me.
-
I am aware a sparrow exists. not in a spiritual vacuum. people are another hell.
-
excuse my friend his earlier joy in saying who do I have to **** to get ****** around here. at age 19 a man exploded beside my friend and my friend went quiet. to his grave thinking his own bomb malfunctioned.
Jun 20, 2014
Jun 20, 2014 at 10:48 AM UTC
it is hard not to do what I’m accused of. have self published a collection of poems, most recent, titled ‘we stole not the same bread’. don’t mean to implicate. it’s 105 pages. link below.
http://www.lulu.com/shop/barton-smock/we-stole-not-the-same-bread/paperback/product-21626878.html
May 15, 2014
May 15, 2014 at 9:11 AM UTC
all in the glory
a skin piece
melting down the sewer eyes
****
Columbus ave.
sickly "light"? grizzly stairs up the bridge
******* on the low stoopway
forget that corner and a glinting nametag, a dancer
stay here and run! don't do it again YES
who bends over in the streets
BAM!
"I wasn't watching I'm sorry"
"Oh, no need honey"
undress me
organic hair pitted down matted in a Tesla
Nikol, Nico
the watchburn and lion's breath purple dangling "in the car again?"
****
not again"
trunkbed aroma hitting
Des Moines!
or was it blue again?
who's sound is closer to the truth and who's taking the first shower?
get naked
I reach down for the stone
I feel the soft at its edges
cigarette soaring!
Waterloo
which of you suckers ruled England last year?
the weekend slowly sleeps
in the bay's gentle red cradle
Mother
fitting quietly
an alleyway above our heads
who?
Edward
a hand raises from the striped automobile
"Hey! **** out of the road!"
Chopin, the glissando with no lost word
the shattered beer bottle of 20 years, antiquity
glow into the sink
washing onward Barton and Lombard
Barton and Lombard
both streets unacting like the other
shards of melting black pavement lying so tight and close, the lovers of suburbia
...
Jul 8, 2016
Jul 8, 2016 at 6:14 PM UTC
(today only, 30% off all print books with coupon code OCTFLASH30)
from father, footrace, fistfight (selected poems, Barton Smock, June 2014)
http://www.lulu.com/shop/barton-smock/father-footrace-fistfight/paperback/product-21672373.html
[the minimal class]
I orbit
the idea
of an animal
not thinking
of itself.
to err
is hunger.
[cipher]
aware of my body
as if my body
is on a raft.
a creaky deceit
I call
rafting in the ****
last night in a very safe garage
I promised a friend
I’d mention
the moon
in the period following
my last
idea.
my body eats me.
god dangles the body of my son
in front of my son’s
next
memory.
some are born
born-again.
current trends include cloning.
the first person to recall dying
will be held aloft.
[patience]
the black market is a state of mind. I smoke a joint in a barn and worry I will see a barn owl that will crush my barn owl dreams. my worry walks me three miles where I meet a woman trying to sell a book in a graveyard. I trade her the memory of our previous trade for the book she tells me is shy. my other possession is a neglected baby.
[sequestration]
a person goes dark. night shifts disappear. a lone panic capsizes the anatomically correct. men fill up on mouthwash. men float. women bite their tongues in half before they can say women and children. insomnia becomes more than the over-hyped novelization of insomnia. a boy draws a cutlass in a broom closet and is told he can’t sleep. I begin to want more from a diagnosis. a kite being flown in hell by a son gone pro.
Oct 22, 2015
Oct 22, 2015 at 9:33 AM UTC
I dance on a stage lined with poetic words, phases, and rhymes.
My barton is my feathered pen that moves in the wind.
My inspiration is everyone I meet as I bow to them with grace..
I swirl in the sacred energies as body moves on Mothers soil.
The cool dirt tantalizes my senses to write with visions.
The sun above feeds my breath so I merge with its light.
The wind carries periods, and comas in my creative mind.
Yes, on stage I go celebrating the moment
The moment I am in human form.
Jul 18, 2017
Jul 18, 2017 at 8:27 AM UTC
she
she has a mind
deeper than marianas trench
eyes bluer
than the vast texas skies
the pools of barton springs
the aquamarine stones
we stare at in a shop
that dares to dream
of our fingerprints on their doors
from years ago
her hair
is like flaxen silk
strands of sunlight
fresh picked sunflowers
veils of green tea
and bouquets of
roses and tulips and hydrangeas
permeate the air that wraps
around her delicate wrists
body like devils backbone
i drive on her thinking
of her
those distant memories
now a full reality
like the lips i now can kiss
not only in my dreams
but in the moment
of moments
here and now
photographs no longer hurt
but remind
of what was and what will be
promises wrapped
no longer in the guise of champagne or wine
but in sobriety, truth,
and the firm knowledge
that love knows no gender
no time, no place, no wrong
love conquers all
even the tender truths
of loves lost, battled, and won
over years of waiting
and searching for each other
in the eyes of other women
or men
or people
that never meet the same exact
proportions of laughter
of care, compassion, tenderness
she
she looks for the answers in me
and now, made of glass
i show her all
bare and naked to her
not hiding
unafraid to speak the words
that have always sat on my shoulders
whispering into my ears
lightly kissing on the collarbone
a touch so sensitive
and word so full of meaning
love
it means more to me now
than ever before
it feels like her
the sun
the moon
the eyes from across the room
the carress of cheek
the embrace at the gates
of the rest of our lives
she
she knows me
she loves me
she is everything to me
my forever muse
my forever love
mine
hers
ours
Jun 22, 2021
Jun 22, 2021 at 12:57 PM UTC
the abandoned books of women
hurry, grief, your mice
to a nearby
field.
close, silence, your mouth
in the ****** scar
of mine.
distill, wind, the river
your ****
fiction.
scarecrow
if I am worn, let me help you
undress.
loss of the family dog
be alone. enter snowfall as a heavy breather in a white dress
window shopping
for a red.
know
that in between heaven and hell, there is war. hell thinks it a nightmare, heaven thinks it hell. hell sleeps more than your sister in love. heaven counts warriors and can’t put an angel on why the numbers keep changing.
as increased chatter is good for morale, call your mother and say you are her appetite.
scoop the brains of your buddies into a helmet.
annotations for daughter
the second coming of self harm has entered a town called Both.
having a baby is a mouthful.
–
think of yourself as a journal death keeps.
.....
also:
for those interested, I have 15 signed copies of my full length poetry collection ‘earth is part earth and there’s a hole in the sound I made you from’ (Dec 2015, 98 pages) and 8 signed copies of my full length poetry collection ‘eating the animal back to life’ (July 2015, 316 pages) that I’d love to mail, free of charge, for sharing and/or for burning. send me a message with a physical address along with the collection desired if this is something one hand or two of yours would like.
( Barton)
Feb 12, 2016
Feb 12, 2016 at 12:13 PM UTC
We who STAND with pen as staff, are the avatars.
Our footsteps the written word.
Our intent a map for exploration.
We who CARRY the label writer, are the sages.
The one's who open hearts.
The one’s who speak to activate minds.
We who MOVE with pen as tool are monks.
Our scriptures insight for visitor to connect.
Our visions merge for life to expand the soul.
We who MARCH with pen like-barton move gracefully.
The one's who orchestrate grand sounds.
The one's that hold candles to shine with truths.
We who ECHO as wordsmith gardeners spread seeds.
Our actions take place in fields white with colorful words.
Our word-seeds take root to aid the world.
We who WALK are an earth family that mirrors life.
The one's who know the truth that everyone is sacred.
The one's who know life through rain and sun is truly a gift.
Sep 13, 2018
Sep 13, 2018 at 2:48 PM UTC