Today is flint,
I spent all of yesterday
and now I'm skint,
it's tough but
so am I and
Friday is worth saving for,so
I can spend a little more
time.

you're a game of "fill-in-the-blanks"
and your soul is a canvas
etched on in the manner of Dorian Gray's.

you're a prototype and an original
you are "buy now because it won't be printed again!"
but you are also a stickman made out of dough
cookie-cut so you fit into your box.

you're fast when you run
you're a storm when in love
you're a puzzle and a statement
and a Rubik's cube with 54 facets - all different colors.

but you're not a problem that needs to be solved
you're not the only solution to a problem
And sometimes you have problems
and not solutions
but that's the Struggle for you.

and you're quite small, really,
if that's what you believe.

*Not everyone can change the world; it's true.
But *someone has to do it, right?

from* The Blood You Don’t See Is Fake (September 2013)

http://www.lulu.com/shop/barton-smock/the-blood-you-dont-see-is-fake/paperback/product-21966942.html


raiment

we are not here
to enshroud
the myth
of the woman
who swims
naked-

we are here
might our sons
mourn
the stickman’s
belief
     that his wife
went to pieces


praise act

you pull a reddish pup like a sled through a town that surrounds you.

I think you are my brother but more importantly you think I am yours.

you feel not like yourself but like a tooth you belong to.

up ahead, we work together.

I pop myself in the mouth with our father to achieve a crisis of no faith.

our father?

he is made mostly of the words that display my words.


proof

my birdcage was a stuffed bear and my bird was a moth.  oddly the bird protected my sister from knowing she was molested and oddly its cage promised my brother he would again be gay.  oddly only because it was planned.  I was more spelled than born and consented often to being sounded out.  I carried with me a grey blanket that I held like a curtain when asked.  my eyes were peepholes I had to avoid.            


all

     the first time I can recall a teapot whistling in the manner I’d imagined

a teapot
to whistle

     my brother was cutting himself in the tub, gingerly, a test run…

-

the whistling scared the **** out of him, the bejesus

-

being made of nothing allowed brother
to volunteer
in New Orleans
after Katrina

     he opened a few refrigerators

that’s all it took

-

without my brother, I’d be in his words

beside myself

     some ****** eared stranger mucking up a white door
listening
as if to a radio
announcing the missing

     blow up dolls

by name


funereal

as some things incorrectly have wings, we stamp a chicken into the hood of a cop car.  the groundskeeper on break inside the church wonders aloud how much is left of the lord.  a boy not part of our boyhood bikes over to us with his feet he’s named individually show and tell.  the cop chuckles but straightens out when he sees what I’ve made of my hand.  the boy says careful it might stay that way for good.


infant travelogue

mittens on the forepaws of a dead wolf.  

one must be serious
about art
but also
flirty.

I will raise you as my own.  

I will make two parts
of your mother’s
passing.

she will live in childbirth.


notes on the saints (iii)

a crookedness within a white cat.  a naked boy on crutches.  a girl in a pink jumpsuit jogging in place beside a man rolling a tire.  all of this says I’ve witnessed my father by himself on a child’s swing ******* two unlit cigarettes.  we don’t exist until god begins to worry.  our neighbor is an old woman with a gun.  she is afraid her color will suddenly change.  when she chases my father home I understand the riddle of his cigarettes.  around him I pretend to be asleep.  I hear him watering a rag and wait for him to press it to my nose and tell me my dreams are bleeding.  when a kitten, the head of our white cat would stick to the refrigerator door.

we are not here
to enshroud
the myth
of the woman
who swims
naked-

we are here
might our sons
mourn
the stickman’s
belief
     that his wife
went to pieces

A BIRD WAS EXPLORING TIME AND SPACE

March was doing that thing
where it was just becoming

April and
the thunder

muttered to itself
'bout something or other.

"Mumblemumblemumble!"
it rumbled.

Very un-Eliotish.

Rain fell, but
its heart wasn't in it.

A bird was exploring
time and space

sticking a little bit of song
on to a quarter to two

where the Downs come up
and say howdy do to the horizon.

You: were as dead
as ever.

All memory could do
was draw a child's

stickman version
of you.

I still refused to
believe it.

But time was
wearing me down.

That bird just kept on
trying to glue

that one piece of time
to that one piece of place.

But it just wouldn't
do.

I turned and
walked away.

"Where is tomorrow? In another world..."
as the poet had said.

Can't say I could
answer that question.

a woman places my hand in the stomach of god

as fire
the stickman’s
barber
betrays
my hair

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mine books can be found, there.  

~
some recent poems:

[loneliness]

the only
animal
recognized
by the magician’s
one-trick
pony

/ touch
giving itself
a childhood

/ an alien’s
crucifix

~

[liftoff]

the scarecrow loving puppet put a pop gun to the head of the soundman’s lamb.

-

my last meal
was my mother’s
voice.

~

[the cross]

the haunted clock
in tornado’s
house

the weightlifter’s flower

the rabbit’s
bliss

~

[scare]

I know it is nothing

or a relative
of nothing

what mice
make
of a mouse
possessed

/ my distance from the unborn widens

~

[homage]

like some verbally abused parrot

the crow
the phone’s
god

~

[depictions of reentry (iv)]

/ the tadpole torching my stomach in the museum of the heartless alligator

/ the spider the star in suicide’s eye

/ the crow in the devil’s purse

~

[depictions of reentry (v)]

/ you can work here for nine months

/ it’s not like riding a bike
it’s more
like kneeling
in the center
of a stickman’s
nightmare

/ never you mind
the bloated
baby’s
yellow
tooth

/ at least the sick

they confuse
death

~

[depictions of reentry (vi)]

night terror, the handwriting
of imago’s
child…

/ resurrection, a memoir

~

[depictions of reentry (vii)]

/ the hands and the crushed mind they crawl from

/ god of the briefly ugly

/ the homeless child of nostalgia’s native

/ graveyard
our game
of telephone

~

[depictions of reentry (viii)]

we laugh about them now

scarecrows
the stepchildren
of apocalypse…

pregnancy as suicide prevention.

be wowed
by stuff
on earth.

~

[depictions of reentry (ix)]

before I got sick
there was a sound
my mother
could make
and a bird
perched
on the arm
of a snowman…

angels, yeah

some
grab their ears
when trapped

~

[depictions of reentry (x)]

the unlit candle

desertion’s birthday

-

the voice
is not god’s
that experiments
on children

but ask
away

-

the dog we buried
is sometimes
on fire

watched
we think
by our sister’s
cooking

for David Smith*

as I wait for what this painting reminds me of, a stickman with a short straw works my mother’s head injury into his teleplay of snowfall and crow.  asleep, you must be in the ambulance outside my father’s church.

depictions of reentry, parts i thru iii, were published at FORAGE poetry journal on WordPress...please check them out.


~

depictions of reentry** (iv)

/ the tadpole torching my stomach in the museum of the heartless alligator

/ the spider the star in suicide’s eye

/ the crow in the devil’s purse

~

depictions of reentry (v)

/ you can work here for nine months

/ it’s not like riding a bike
it’s more
like kneeling
in the center
of a stickman’s
nightmare

/ never you mind
the bloated
baby’s
yellow
tooth

/ at least the sick

they confuse
death

~

depictions of reentry (vi)

night terror, the handwriting
of imago’s
child…

/ resurrection, a memoir

~

depictions of reentry (vii)

/ the hands and the crushed mind they crawl from

/ god of the briefly ugly

/ the homeless child of nostalgia’s native

/ graveyard
our game
of telephone

~

depictions of reentry (viii)

we laugh about them now

scarecrows
the stepchildren
of apocalypse…

pregnancy as suicide prevention.

be wowed
by stuff
on earth.

~

depictions of reentry (ix)

before I got sick
there was a sound
my mother
could make
and a bird
perched
on the arm
of a snowman…

angels, yeah

some
grab their ears
when trapped

~

depictions of reentry (x)

the unlit candle

desertion’s birthday

–

the voice
is not god’s
that experiments
on children

but ask
away

–

the dog we buried
is sometimes
on fire

watched
we think
by our sister’s
cooking

~

depictions of reentry (xi)

and in dreaming
of what to use
for its body
and its blood

the devil
began

to starve / when it snowed
it snowed

on a tooth / this was in

the same
Ohio

where brothers
ruin
now

with hiccups

games
of hide-and-seek

/ anyway, sister said the crow had it coming

and I made this face we called

god
as a boy
tasting
a star…

~

depictions of reentry (xii)

mom needs a jar of jelly to call the priest. try as he might, my brother can’t seem to get his tongue stuck to the oven door. my hands are here to hide the fact I’m wearing gloves. dad snaps three pictures before passing out. the voodoo dolls of my invisible babies have passed each other underground. I am thinking of things you can do.

~

depictions of reentry (xiii)

a suicide
from my past,

a surprise
party
for death…

/ if I lose my voice long enough
will they let me
wear
the mask

~

depictions of reentry (xiv)

the newborn
yawns, reveals

god
to be
a biter

–

I don’t
in my sleep
do anything

let alone
impressions

–

it’s hell on an image

the mirror’s
alibi

~

depictions of reentry (xv)

I went outside and hid god under a rock then went inside and put a pillow over my brother’s face. don’t worry, my brother lived and god grew stronger. in fact, by morning, my mother was so at peace she finished my brother off with a cotton ball. my dad bought a boat and said the older they are the smaller the mouth. people came from a mirror called practice.

~

depictions of reentry (xvi)

with a sock in its mouth

suicide
the birthday
ghost

/ having heard
of the shadow
animal’s
ear
for the hand
puppet’s
collapse /

passes through
a wall
into a room
where a balloon
eating out
a prophet
stops not

to hiss

I haven't spoken to anyone in a month, maybe more; I've been drifting from town to town, state to state, walking until I'm too tired to walk any more, then walking a little more.
The last person I talked to try to **** me.
I no longer hitchhike.
"Excuse me, son." Some old ******* says, standing over me as I write this. "Unless you're gonna buy something, You can't stay."
It usually takes about 3 minutes for them to crack onto me, and about 4 minutes for me to be kicked out of a cafe, diner, -anywhere-.
I just look at him, nod, and go about my way.
When I first got here, I trusted strangers. I thought people were basically good, but that's changed now. Nobody ever does something kind without an ulterior motive, period.
Even priests are just trying to get into heaven.

I have no home. No family, no friends.
I find my company in ***** looks from strangers and in the nightly harassment I receive from the best humanity has to offer.

I can't complain too much, though. I have everything I need.
I have food, provided by the complimentary roadside trashcans.
Thankfully, someone always seems to have thrown out some bread that they think is poison because it's a day-or-so passed its expiry date.
It's an acquired taste, I'll say that much, but it's not poison.
Though I tend to avoid the milk.
Every time I see myself through the reflection of a car window, or a public restroom mirror, I seem to have grown a little more frail and gaunt than the last time.
No grandmother could ever pinch these cheeks, and a hug from me would result in some kind of bruising.
I feel like 2 dimensional.
Like a stickman.
Like one of those cartoons you draw on the corners of the pages of a boring book. Flicking the pages backwards and forwards, and making the stickman do his little dance.
No direction.
No end.
No purpose.
"Hey ******, how much for a *******?"
I turn around to see two guys in a car peering over at me, driving slowly at the pace of my walking.
Ive been so lost in my own personal ramblings it seems I've stumbled into the wrong part of town again.
Not that I've been here before. Every town has its own part where you shouldn't walk.
"You hear me ******?"
The guy talking is wearing a flipped baseball cap and has a thin moustache. His sidekick is riding shotgun, he too wearing a backwards-facing baseball cap



I notice a small figure rummaging through the trash down the alley.
A girl.
She's wearing a very worn hoody, with a hat, and some shoes that look like they don't quite fit.
Someone like me?
"Hey!" I shout, my voice breaking.
I had forgotten what my own voice sounded like.
She drops the lid of the trash can, and her eyes dart straight to me. She is on edge. She says nothing and just looks back at me. Her eyes shining in the moonlight, like a lost puppy.
I want to take her in.
She looks around 22, round 5feet tall, slender, with threads of golden hair poking out the edges of her skullcap. I can't make out the colour of her eyes. Green, grey, or hazel, maybe.
"Hey, what's your name? Are you looking for food?"
I approach her slowly, trying to appear non-hostile.
As I get closer, she nods her head, still on edge.
She has blue eyes.
"It's okay. I'm harmless. Can I know your name? I'm Shawn."
I start to reach out my hand. I want to just hold her close and tell her it's alright. I want to keep her safe and warm in this cold world. I want to-
"Don't come any closer!" She screams, pulling out a sharpened toothbrush and pointing it at me with both hands.
I stop.
I can see that she is like me. Too much, in fact; which means there's no real way of convincing her that I'm not going to hurt her.
I begin to walk back slowly, with the urge to say something to make her trust me, but nothing comes out.
Already I find myself back into the roadside as she fades into the shadows, gone. The sounds of the trashcan rustling in the alley serves as a depressing reminder that even those who are like me will not let me into their world.
Already I am alone again.

She had blue eyes.
I've been wandering aimlessly for maybe 400 days now.
I stopped counting after a year.
I have no idea what I'm looking for, or why I started in the first place.
Blue like a cloudless sky
What am I trying to escape that could be worse than this?
Blue like the vast ocean
Maybe I'm not trying to escape. Maybe I'm searching for something.
But what?

MRI, or the stickman’s

first
snowstorm.

a telephone called depression.

we can no more save
the alien
that died
for jesus

than we can write
the dog-whistle
bible.

I’m sad because I’m circumcised.

the scarecrow
has dreams
of becoming
a surgeon.

I’m no expert on sleep. I’m being followed

by a coat hanger.

ask my hand if it’s true that all the babies had to stay in their mothers to survive.

I am the stickman you drew as a kid,
the one you flipbooked on the corners
of every Christmas catalogue that hogged
your time and pencil.

Oh how smooth you drew me - and thin.
And I remember when you gave me a bike,
rolled me right off the page, right there
at the hardwares - those Gifts For Dads.

I see you bought a sketchpad,
and some conte's and charcoal.
I suppose you draw much fuller men now.
No, I never spoke, just eyed you.

And you didn't see me that day at all,
that time I was jiggered on the steps
of Woolworth's, smoking a blunt
at the corner of Fifth and Deluded, watching you.

Why? Well, I didn't want you to see.
Or perhaps I wanted another go,
strobed and animate, not fat and gristle,
walking among the things you'll never buy.

/ you can work here for nine months

/ it’s not like riding a bike
it’s more
like kneeling
in the center
of a stickman’s
nightmare

/ never you mind
the bloated
baby’s
yellow
tooth

/ at least the sick

they confuse
death

it's the termites. they crawl under my skin when I am not looking. they have blackberry juice for blood. it drips down their little chins, sticky and soursweet.
I am just driftwood. tunnels etched into my bones. a million legs creeping around my insides. shore to shore I crash into rocks and am pulled away with the tide. it's always the moon telling me to leave. it's always me turning away.
I am just a stickman. hang me up to dry when you can't figure out what I am. the alphabet is not infinite enough to define me.
the termites don't like me whole. they prefer meat that is rotting. whispers in my skull, shadows leave me half complete. I like the sun best when it is below me. I like the light most when it is directly in my eyes. all the terrible things I never want to see. open your mouth and blind me.

A BIRD WAS EXPLORING TIME AND SPACE

March was doing that thing
where it was just becoming

April and
the thunder

muttered to itself
'bout something or other.

"Mumblemumblemumble!"
it rumbled.

Very un-Eliotish.

Rain fell, but
its heart wasn't in it.

A bird was exploring
time and space

sticking a little bit of song
on to a quarter to two

where the Downs come up
and say howdy do to the horizon.

You: were as dead
as ever.

All memory could do
was draw a child's

stickman version
of you.

I still refused to
believe it.

But time was
wearing me down.

That bird just kept on
trying to glue

that one piece of time
to that one piece of place.

But it just wouldn't
do.

I turned and
walked away.

"Where is tomorrow? In another world..."
as the poet had said.

Can't say I could
answer that question.

first fog
and the speechless
are giving
birth

longing is a stickman’s tail

a boy I know
checks
for his nose

whose father hits a deer

whose mother won’t mention
the puppet’s
bra

A BIRD WAS EXPLORING TIME AND SPACE

March was doing that thing
where it was just becoming
April and

the thunder
muttered to itself
'bout something or other

"Mumblemumblemumble!"
it rumbled
Very un-Eliotish

Rain fell, but
its heart
wasn't in it

a bird
was exploring
time and space

sticking a little bit
of song
on to a quarter to two

where the Downs come up
and say howdy
do to the horizon

you: were
as dead
as ever

all memory could do
was draw a child's
stickman version of you

I still refused to believe it
but time was
wearing me down

that bird just kept on
trying to glue
that one piece of time

to that one piece of place
but it just wouldn't
do

I turned and walked away
"Where is tomorrow?
In another world..."

as the poet had said
can't say I could
answer that question

sacrifice 2

Two dreams: I was crying in a horse about death. The horse had branches for bones and had never been awake. I was in the horse because Jesus had seen my wrists. Suicide gets a stickman into heaven. A mother keeps earaches in her palm.