Eating the Animal Back to Life (poems)

Barton Smock . July 2015

opening line from a year with mother

it crawled out of me and knew your birthday

opening line from a year with father

I can hear your ears

nothings kitten
in the mind
of baby
unborn
where time
is frozen, where god
pleads
dj vu,
the formless
mother
of embodied
whims
ghosts
herself
to associations
of gender
that exist
only
like nothings
kitten

response and call

I am born
back to back
god removes the mirror from my mothers mirage

three denials
the narrative that haunts my flood story never has two words for the
sticks I rub together.
the mother treats her mouth like a net shes failed to eat through.
no one is talking to the pregnant angel who cant piss.

scarecrow and the lottery

I cant make heads or tails of your fervor. I cant make body. I put a hole
in my father and through it watch my mother eat her weight in god. I
want what my siblings have. each other, game shows, memory.
indigenous amnesia.

horseface
you strike me as an invasive listener. I love your body. loving mine
doesnt mean Im not okay wearing too many clothes. does this make
me look alone? like, crucifix-on-the-dashboard alone? my mother fell for
my father because he couldnt find a finger to write with. horror movies
lift me from poverty into a long period of healing followed by a jump
scare. earlier, before you bled into a corncob, my brain had you as a
spider spinning an infant. if it pleases god, Id like to go somewhere time
hasnt been.

extramural (i)
as he prepared to leave my world to the memory of a man addicted to
god, my father was stung by a bee. this matters. bees carried the scent
of absence. bees spoke to mother. mother was the woman it took two
like my father to make. mother swallowed to bruise the body of any
dropped thing sounding itself out in a nightmare had by children new to
infancy. mother swallowed and called it singing. there will be a god.
this matters. perfect, now, the nothing you say.

extramural (ii)
as acne commits my face to a memory of scripture, god worries that
mans silence is a pox upon both the crow and the crow. on good
authority, the cyclops is blind in one eye. you were tortured, yes, but
nothing stands out. my living hand performs for my dying. imagine my
fathers dismay at the realization yours had of having done this autopsy
before.

extramural (iii)
the fireplace is on drugs. get the good rope and tie it around the wrist of
the hand I want dead.
on a drive Ive undertaken to see my brother, it comes to me that odd
things were being sold. jesus-on-a-stick. the crown of thorns, extra. I
close my eyes. I dare the brain. the brain says its off to be forgiven.
brother has one ugly foot and one beautiful. I have this disorder causes
me to fully remember dreams*
*dreams only
everything happened in 1985. words dont mean. numbers mean. tell
your gay father he has nothing to do with himself.
the wind is asleep. it sleeps outside.

extramural (iv)
uncle has been all day figuring the teeth of his that will never touch. he
has this riddle he calls code for what to get the man who has nothing. if I
can get him to stop biting his wrists I might be able to chalk something
wont need moved. when I was born, I was small enough to fit in most
mouths. uncle is not the tiniest bit mad. he holds babies only when they
are hungry and he is not. those with angels think those without are
selfish.

extramural (v)
the people are looking for something that tells them what to show. my
father cant hear the storm for the honey on his knees. at birth, a blown
eardrum gives the kid a way out of making friends. a sermon about
washing a mountain with a rock takes a word from my mothers mouth.
grief is a good listener.

energies
my father snaps his shovel stealing snow from our travel-addicted
neighbor. his mute sisters last confession is a first. his doctor brothers
dollhouse is a hospital. television is a byproduct of my mothers human
longing for animals. if my arms were healed, Id keep the baby from
swatting its penis. I call my next trick rabbit sorrow.

christ, kid
I have gone without god to see the hands of my hands.
I tell you they were there.
I tell you
I am the same
distance
from
my eyes.
christ, kid.
the present
alone
takes three
ghosts.

cisgender for Brian Dawson

god
to me
was any
word
my father
didnt
know.
profess
to know.

Franz
two girls replace two boys and continue the good work of making a
cripple sandwich.
I become a woman to watch my mother die.
father
he jumps
less and less
rope.
things come in three raccoons
to rearrange
a rabbit.
a baby avoids the plague
like a first
word
amen.
brother gives hell to my sense of place.

the butcher
most babies here are born without a trigger finger.
but some
get through.

themes for counterpart

my dog dies
and I take
its place.
because he could be anyone
I use my dad
to get laid.
christ had two sons
his daughter
ate.

two woes for wolf's blood

owl moon
& ghost
vowel

violent ends
but for this letter, the word is silent.
you are not yet
my maker.
his observations
exhibit
decline. hers
display
animals
that forgive.
everything buried
is buried
in god.
the brain
as it designs
a plotless
thing.

water that sister moves a net through

brother masturbates with an almost invisible dedication.
mother
yells
from the river
that all rain
is highway
robbery.
while reciting
proverbs
for mitochondria
I pass the time
wearing
my fathers
shoes
for the footsteps
in his head.

sleeps (i)
my daughter is seized by a dream to endure her mothers preoccupation
with death. while waiting for his pillows heart to stop, my son resolves
to keep the mirrors brain. that each might skip the parts Ive
memorized, I read to them from a room Ive put on the spot. when we
pray, well pray we were here to the idea we are.

sleeps (ii)
could be
god
is god
because
our world
is the least
of his fathers
worries

skate park
food
prepares
in me
a faith
a wasp attends its own crucifixion
in an area known for being receptive to memory
the boy
drops
cock
any advance
on god
please praise
remotely

themes for arrowhead

if the damn thing is a boy, let it have a knot in its stomach. if its not one
twin, its another. if a girl, find a woman whos been to nothing and
back.
bring me a fat tick from the dog of baptism. owl from the hair of god.

the male breast

a bowl of brown rice
in a sandbox

early work
the babies my father held.
the hell, the worlds
largest.
the parts of the house
that caught fire
in two
moving
vans. the bully
mother poisoned
in the dreamy
media
of religious
thought. the daring
suicide, the doubled
god.

the boy wont eat

to him, these meals
are small
fictions. there is
however
some truth
to his mother
the weigher
of light.

scold and gather

seeing my mother
gives me
the swallows.
her sickness is bravery.
she tells the tv
its food
is too close. stillness
that shes already
eaten.
our house is surrounded by sticks.
it is not god
gives man
something to bundle, bring inside
and break. I can piss
and put soap
on my hands.

screen (i)
it suggests
the email
of someone
Ive lost.
certain symptoms
return
no results.
brother blames his bad back
on being
the bad
back
of a shaman.
illness
is the real
magic.

screen (ii)
while investigating the disappearance of her fathers belly button
my mother was killed for wearing a wire

screen (iii)
I pray to god for good things and to the devil for bad. the focal point of
any daydream is a crow. in my fathers mind, his mind returns. in my
mothers there fires impulsive searches for lonely teeth. at the sound of
anything overhead, our dogs are trained to dig for confetti. I have an
odd request, I say to my neighbor the cat person. I want to talk
someone out of suicide. the cat person is on her ninth vicarious life.

pilot light
baby, baby talk, and pilot light.
kitchens everywhere,
god is alone.

north of amen
from the double vision of a dead parents dream shiner
to reflections
on the body
art
of departure,
long live possession.

naming ceremony
I was born
impossibly born
addicted
to the sound
of footsteps.
god
loves the woman
who makes the bed
of his last
believer.

my sister, the stick

a small fire
in the room
with all
the pigs.
a school
without
a shooting.

Ohio barn owl

as I search
the mirror
for the size
of gods
fingernail, a hair
of mine
goes grey

crows
give praise
gods ashes
are still
collected

themes for abandon

the father is a one-man show
of seasonal darkness.
the mother is clockwork.
the child is the child born
wearing
a tight
shirt.
the loaf of bread is the hot heart of nightfall.
the cut is a city
attracted
to a blood drive. the blood drive
is gods treehouse.

vaccination dolls
the mother fixes nothing so she aint gotta hear of it breaking again. the
father saves on the sly for a rabbit. the brother lives long enough to see
one of his eyes challenge the designation of his sisters foresight
as a miracle
of brevity. the neighbors argue over whether its a migraine or a
headache. what one tells the lord, another tells an angel. the god is the
god that teaches a snowman how to have a stroke. the animal learns to
speak by having none recall what it plans to imagine.

tensions
kidnapped
I come
as advertised
before god
in the spitting
image
of mother.
unharmed
on earth
is a form
I do not
take after.

narratives daughter
the last time my father sees me, Im trying to resurrect the girlfriend I hid
him from who made me believe I could do anything as well as a man.
who kept a memoir of how she came to own certain dictionaries. who
ordered pizza and had it delivered to a house on fire.

interpretive work
prayer
as the horn
the car
carries
into
a tornado. touch
as ventriloquy.

grooming
when her mouth arrives, it arrives in pain. what gets around to my
brother is that after her fire was dipped in hell she tried to drown her
trigger finger. I make a mental list of the oddest things that stick to my
body. my hands come from two camps of how to count the devils teeth.
food is the voice of god but it goes right through me.

handgun
as if god had poured oil
on an egg
about to hatch
I was up all night
sleeping
like my mother
before me
whose future
went on
forever
and I saw
again
the temple
of that hellish
artifact
from the first
suicide
yours
inspired

clowning midwest, clowning poor

to jump
the dream
of audience
that buried
my fathers
rib
I stand
on an operating table
in a circus
tent
and invite
my mother
to believe
all earthquakes
belong
to satan
and not
to the devil
my sister
was
when high
on the body, its boneless
forgetting

accession
starvation
is the invisible
cannibals
birthmark.
water
is nothings
blood.

action figures of the opposite sex

the lonely man holds that the mouth is gods mark. the lonely man
announces with a blow dryer my bath bound mother. years ago, I was
caught doing two things and was sentenced while both were speaking.
nowadays, I hear for my father who listens politely to talk of never let a
beast be your eyes.

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
dj vu.
if he didnt tell me
I wouldnt know
Ive slapped myself
awake.
one of us
then one of us
will die.

salvo
the farming out
of absence. the broken
hand
of the androids
pianist. the silo
that invented
sickness.
the brains of operation cemetery.
the lizards
tail
that returned
with a fingernail.
the demon
with a head
for ice.

themes for orphan

you will never be
a virus
the animals moment of bliss
before it is named
masturbation
as the seizure
had
by hologram
the cyclone
that makes a baby
you cant
put down

themes for fugitive

as ahistoric
exit
music
plays
you leave
the beast
in the bitch
of its
amnesia
themes for prey
infant cinema

uppers
god gets fucked-up about which hair to harm on your head. in some,
this goes on for years. I have a lucky razor, a father whos blind in one
hand, and a suicidal thought that scares me to death in front of cops. my
last meal came to me on a toothbrush.

in all my drunken plagiarism

I thought
Id abused
myself

perch
bottom line, Im not sharing a cell with gods emotionally phantom parrot

noise
I am trying to lure my brother from the woods with a semi-flat basketball
and a fallen wasp nest. at home, the neighbor girl he has a crush on is
using our water. the first time he disappeared like this, she wore my
mothers bathrobe and called his name all the way to junior until her
voice went. her note is the oddest thing Ive not reread.
there is smoke coming out of your father.

lists (i)
the identity
of the kid
didnt
beat us up
is
the schoolyard
our church
of arson

lists (ii)
the three point line
is the madman
spots
a cigarette

lists (iii)
with what there is
of my tongue
I think
to reach
the back
of my head
televised
offsite, a cat
bathes
its softened
image

lists (iv)
a bruise
on any
visible
child
is
the fathers
jump
on winter

lists (v)
the rare
the black
the eyes
come in threes

lists (vi)
tragedy
to an angel
is
the ghost
of an alien

lists (vii)
its mother
has it
born
the day after
it stops
talking
it is the animal
gods
miss

lists (viii)
I rarely understand what I read as I read it. a horror movie with the
working title
gods wound
is being scored
in the mind of my unborn kid. by the shyness
of my blood, not again.

lists (ix)
the right hand of god squeezes a bar of soap until it becomes a crow.
theres nothing wrong
with your sons
black
heart.
before I had a cock
I told everyone
I had a tail.

lists (x)
I trace my stutter to the narrative delay that uprooted my father who
broke his foot in his sleep trying to kick his mothers television. I limp
circles around those whove gone quietly. grandfather, from heaven, I
see my body as a surplus of irretrievable peace.

lists (xi)
natal homing makes me cum

fist
with a clear
head
I wash
my hands
in the dark
and spread
the fingers
of one
into the absence
of my fathers
glove
where
the fingers
of my other
had died
for the knuckles
motherd
liken
to a puppets
ribs

netting
I show
for the fleeing
your cigarette
attends
a butterfly
is at first
a butterflys
ghost
for the face
of god
I admit
Im torn
go dog
catcher
white

tautologies
an infant with still hands is said to be fingerpainting in hell. a man who
wears a hat to bed is said to give god hair. a boy who strings up dead
rabbits left and right is said to be fighting a toothache. a girl who
punches herself in the nose is said to be a plain woman who on roller
skates entered a strange traffic of hearse and horse as two of her
mothers footsteps.

themes for lamb

dreamt
I was nude
on rice
beach
dreamt a mother had gone to the desert
for fish
her sons
fish
could eat
while swimming
two martyrs
share a camera
both
call
touch
dreamt sleep
was the eyes
blood
relative

the tame
I have what is called my fathers face. my son has a hand because my
son holds a stone. the mother stomps her feet in the name of the holy
ghost known for running the orphanage into the ground. the sister sees
god but does not see god shove a dead bird down her brothers pants.
the brother believes in god so god will cure him. sitting on this swing has
made me fat.

the people of heaven

immediately after I left my baby sister in good hands to deejay for my
brothers above average loneliness, she was struck in the head by a
rock so small she thinks it is still looking for her brain. my brother
blames me for this as often as he doesnt. he knows it is common for my
sister to get ahead of herself. when she is not telling us about the
people of heaven, shes telling them about god.

senescence
I bury the bone I never gave to my brothers dog in a whites only
cemetery. my wife is safe at home trying on dresses my kids wouldve
seen me in had they not been trying so hard to recall their black
childhood. my father finds peace, his speechless snake. god, god eats
all by her lonesome the bird she made small.

bearers
we borrowed clothes
from the body. food
wouldnt fit
in our mouths
mother claimed
because

angel crime
zookeeper reads obituary

helpings
she can see the beginnings of a boy in her husbands abandoned poem.
a skull has nothing to do with a seashell and a dryer is not an oven. god
is in the air. her daughter is taking a pregnancy test to prove one can
get food poisoning from hunger.
all I seem to lose is ghost fat.

my mom is two people in one river

violence
is the only body
that takes a lifetime
to bruise.
I know this guy
so to speak
calls his cock
gods shortcut.
I cant reach my hands.

occasion
I am on the train that will take me to my brother and he is on the train
that will bring him to me. he has only just seen the great bird Ive
envisioned since birth. I make myself in his image and use his inside
voice to describe the bird. my train arrives early. once off, I put a
cigarette in my mouth without lighting it. I pace. a beautiful woman
asks me if I have a light and I say sharply no. I apologize to the woman
and explain how nervous I am to meet my brother this way. she says
she understands. she says shell probably see god before she sees her
sister. I offer her my cigarette and she takes it with her. my bird is
getting smaller and I dont know who to blame.

squadland
pretty early your brother
is a dog
believes it can leap
the electric
fence. red handed
is the daughter
of empty. indian burn, noogie, crown
of thorns. the village suicide
a shill
for whimsy.

themes for slang

the blood
the spiritual
eyesore
of the womans
body
mirror
here is what it said, it said
I think
I have
a mother
whose hands
he tells
apart
christ Im close to my face

themes for caricature

a broken raccoon
in the black hair
of a toppled
trash can. god
saying
the tie
goes
to the eardrum.
father and the stick he swears by.
mother
braless
unplugging
an iron. the washer of the foot
that will touch
one bag
of an erased
home run. and. the soft
anorexic
the washer
of the anxious
gay.

themes for depiction

though the man says
its all
porn
in the fire pit
he holds
in disbelief
the sadness
of two
cocks. dog is as dog does
to the dying
of its language.

zero
when I couldnt get my head around the surrender of my body to the
flotation device of an immaculate conception, Id simply swallow a baby
that had swallowed a pill. years go by and I am zero. the number
arrested for suicide.

yearly
our collective identity is a sick child. some say fever, some say welcome
to the loop of the biblically speechless. people are for others. are for
making eyes at the gender of the god as it oversleeps in the coma we
slip from. the child prays. the child causes a stir in the pastoral urgency
of a moral imagination. we pray. we miss yearly the showdown between
the town drunk and the town ghost. I trace a finger to put my finger on.
the television belonging to our lady of snowy reception has fallen on our
little angel more than once. nothing in the world is the world.

boy and gun

it entered my heart
to take a bird
from the world.
I felt nothing.
the recent absence
of nothing.

arms
it is not suicide to bomb gods shadow. I am the dot my father calls
button. my sons mind wouldve given oxygen too many places to go. his
body happened overnight.

attending the circumcision

the dream
the body
has
again
in which
the dreams
body
seizes
with presence, the nerve
ends
wake

design
providing for a child is like trying to hide ones mouth. the first thing god
said god said in the dark. before I brought my son, I couldnt place him.
things from this world make me think of another.

detail
was the fruit
made them want
teeth

first appeared
father kicks me under the table
for biting
early.
a ghost hears thunder.

hysteria
when out and about, we bury baby brothers head in big sisters chest to
keep his acne from strangers. when inside, we rotate setting leftovers in
front of our only mirror. my growth spurt happens overnight. I start telling
stories of a woman dentist and the family she doesnt see. baby brother
starts to bite. his parents buy a hairbrush and work together to thieve a
single paper plate. someone gets too close to the face of god.

lithic
I am too wrapped up in my own stomach
to visit the mother
who worships
mine

moonling
it is beyond me
why youd want
to be more
than your illness.
where does one go
when gone
three days?

no brain
father smokes to make something disappear. he says hes no brain but
can pass for touched each time the bug is resurrected. when he rolls out
of a blanket and into the side of a building, I believe again in the man
mistaken for gods pencil. mother cant leave him anymore than she can
leave her ears. terrify no one your childhood knows.

no devil
the knock knock joke in need of my fathers skull is all thats left of the
outside world. hell was always the preparing of hell.

notes to abuser
I have had to tell time using only repetition. there is a tattoo I want on a
body I dont. I can see what you see in me. none of my sounds echo. I
have a son. I prepare for him past meals that leave nothing untouched
hoping hell learn to chew on his own. he has three rooms upstairs and
three down. when his bed cant move, he says something to a door.

outlet
depression is a non-starter. depression is depression unknowingly
cured. it is like I have this shirt because it exists and not because it
invites everyone whose shirt its not to enjoy joy. I dont want to hear
you say youre sad to say. I masturbate to reappear and think it might
be why my father vanished. its enough during foreplay to flicker.

spectra
a spider on the ceiling
in the bathroom
means father
fill
the tub.
your mother stood on water
before she learned
to walk.
something about a fly
speaks to her, the way it
enters a thought
to leave
a message

the alien wept but was not heard weeping

not all
drones
dream
of you

themes for patience

I am half
the survivor
I ate for.
I took my son to a bowling alley and gave him an egg.
my daughters sense of touch
was so delayed
she lost sleep
thinking
of all the things that had turned into her hands.
communion was gods plan to leave heaven.

the myth of soft rape

into the artless silence
of god
they come
as buzz words
from the life
of baby.
creations alibi
and man.

complex
our mother
was not one
to make sounds
above an infant
in anothers
house, no, our mother
our shepherdess
mother
would have us flock
to gods
epizootic
nostalgias

themes for fat

I puke sand
into the infants
mouth
in low
praise
of the male
form
made
famous
by a statue
that sold
not
for its representation
of a dominant
existence
but for
the delicacy
with which
its creator
handled
the angels
erection

themes for power

alone
I can cover
two handprints.
the rooms my father enters are bugged.
mother is dumb from pretending
to hit her head.
talking is hell. hell belongs
to a little
devil
that shrinks.
you throw a cell phone at a dog, okay.
pick up the phone
and find
the dog.
let god think
he sees
our puppets.

truancies
pain is under the impression its on the move.
the brain
a fire
that cannot
spread.
in a world of non-competitive
seizing
I show my son
how to waste
his hand
on the hand
signal
that called away
vandalisms
angel.

vernal
when you begin
to show
say
instead
youve a soft
spot
for god

son
it was born in a bath of milk when there was milk to burn. it drew with
daylight. when asked for details, it pulled a shadows tooth. we took it
to a movie, a war movie, where it made its first noise. its pain went
everywhere. it sold, it sold until it ran out of clothes. its mothers had
fight.

refrain
beaten
as it was
beyond
anonymity
it had
no choice
but to hear
from birth
whose face
it had.
mother is down to almost nothing. recognition
is not
so fast.

pop songs
my mother she applies a silence to her lips. I dont hear her go but can
see that she is gone. my brother falls asleep trying to remember the last
time someone carried a tune. the movie of his life is left by yours.

off night
when what we thought
had entered
our father
left
we used him
as an alarm
god is coming
and mom
is vacuuming
stones

neglect
it didnt take long for the frog to become real to those around me. some
would bring it back and pat me on the head and some would laugh
when I told them itd never tried to hop away before. some would say it
was the frog that was depressed and some would pray for the frog I was
lucky to have. when it began to speak, I told myself thats just how frogs
talk. god came to me sooner than most. mom joked that he mustve
known I had a frog to get back to. my sister maintains to this day she
had no intention of eating the frog as she was only trying to impress the
snake her eyes were made for. by the time I woke her up, her hunger
had ballooned and she leapt at me the odd leap of grief.

lone actor
and she was nice to her kids not because she loved them but because
not a single one of them was predicted to reach an age high enough to
become an only child. and she held on to coat hangers and to memories
of pressing outlet covers into place. and she lynched dolls claiming
theyd be lanterns for god when god got brave enough to move again.
and what went on without her went on to cheat death or her brother out
of his massacre.

lost
the better part
of isolation
fact checking
his fathers
loneliness

earthen
she removes a bruise-colored diaper. autopilot. on foot, she passes a
bike her bike has beaten. the spatial awareness of a previous male has
her wanting to buy batteries for toys your son has buried. below, in city,
in a silent films ambulance, her son expires. she collapses on the
wrong side of satans ear. on hand, her fathers body in a hammock is
gods arm in a sling. her mothers last memory is second to none. is of
a baby being the size of a bullet.

dreams fossil
dear eggshell belly. dear mother. dear church of my fathers owl. dear
Ohio. dear owl the deaf bees church.

eating the animal back to life

after seeing god, my brother climbed a tree and wouldnt come down.
he thought himself serious but then had to piss. I took off my pants and
made him swear. it was dark or no one looked.
I carry the larger-than-child child up steps smaller than my feet.
in grade school, a particular person would ask me what my hair was
made of. over time, I have come to call that person people.
on the day I hit my head and start to walk, my son swallows the harm
there isnt in letting god talk.
the cat is all the instruction one needs to kill it. perfect, it seems to care
that suicide is traceable.

contact high
it gets so you cant throw a rock without having a baby. not all of us talk
this way but you have to hand something to the ones that do. Ive seen
voodoo dolls with more personality. had my mothers god been my
fathers, I wouldve gone blind from staring at my birth.

themes for uncle

dad loses a brother while drawing a straight line for a haunted circle
I tell
two jokes
well
in the shadow
Im in
no one replaces my father like my father

continuing themes for uncle

wrapped in a sheet from my mothers bed, I make my way to the
outhouse to show my brother there is a future in smuggling the skin of
god. my father is scraping leaves into an empty pool and the earth with
a rake. if death speaks briefly, I am in two places that cannot exist
without exposure. gone long, it spoke once on the loss of loss.

bury the song of my twin

I am never where I am left. I am in my head where my hair is long. give
god nothing to pull and the devil nothing to scrub. these, are my sisters.
and this: I was born to be here for my location. her exact words are
covered in body language. her seizures come in twos in the order they
were named. ghost reader, passive hypnotist. she wants only what I
send in my sleep. her baby to beautys audition.

catenae
I am at the tail end of being but a child. aloud, ghost sounds to me like
guest. the dog looks to be eating its paws with its hands and will do so
until my hands are gone. influenced by the simple living of trauma,
mothers handwriting emerges to document itself. brother he is on the
dreamy side of becoming the product of a his-and-hers overactive
realism. in his own words, father is moved by one thing and by what
went on in it. a shadow picking up litter, I love him both.

immersion
your attacker has a history of being baptized. identifies as male. was
found hallucinating in a movie theater run by his father. we shot him not
knowing hed already been. his mother says his stutter is an act. she is
what we call empty inside. you look like your father.

hiatuses
i.
the biological mother
in her eighty first
year
appears
in an online
article, something
about catching
frogs and keeping
active, she is in a group
from which her photo
was not
selected, the group
catches
more than just
frogs, the article
goes on
to say

ii.
the biological father
suffers
from jet lag, maybe, maybe
also
pushes
wheelchairs
iii.
of the attempts
made
these were mine
at being
differently
nude

metanoia
we meet in a neutral space to exchange the boy we didnt for the girl we
did. I still feel as if Im on the inside of something pretty. it is always on
the eve of this deletion, at the end of my dual research, that I forgo the
deeper waters for gods raindrop. my mother was nonsense. toothpaste
on a toenail, shed say, he looks a sight to be had by heaven.

sandbox
even with her fingers in her ears, she can hear the toy horse whipped. if
we dont have food, we cant pray. my father was hired for his
quickness, his hands
to salt
the rain. grief is a guard dog from the permanent circus.

themes for country

I am at the truck
getting ice cream
for the overly
nostalgic
girl
who refused
to cut through
the cemetery

to those whose children do not speak

seek poverty for the instant nostalgia it provides

themes for tongue

the woman who doesnt believe in light
can fix your mouth
I have no double
to love
my triple
the man with no teeth
borrows
a ladder

trinity
desperation
as in
desperation
in the disappeared
eye
of its least
loyal
member,
witness
as the failure
of god
to preach
to the choir,
and abuse
as a testament
to the animals
frequent
submission
to the IQ
of poverty

short work
I pull them on
as the pair of gloves
I havent worn
around a baby.
I hear
behind me
(in the voice of someone
imaginably
younger
than those
who make
short work
of god)
a stone
being named
repeatedly.
sex is both
the girl
and where
she was bitten.

sightings
shit, kid, your poems. I took a page from your fathers thesaurus and
played scrabble with god. I came back knowing your name as code for
omission. your mother didnt break a chair over my back because the
chair didnt break. I worked it off in a building from the wrong twin city.
after that, my homeless jailer became your brothers landlord. your
brother he played citizens parole to my arrest. borrowed my hat on
account it wasnt full of money. like most men, we were in love. he had
a note hed written that would appear before a big fight it said dont let
my suicide beat you to death.

ones
the book is a mourning vessel for what its reader stands to lose. I have
a father for every type of silence.

neighborhood wine
its the same in every model. the cat is first, then the dog, then the baby
the cat eats in a dream. while I cant speak for his cough, I can say my
son doesnt belong to god. my fear of water snakes, though vaguely tied
to my fathers shaved belly, began with a bike that was given to my
brother with no one on it.

onlookers
I blow into the infants mouth as if I could prepare an echo for whats
about to happen. in my dream I am turning on a flashlight that thinks it
can scream. in yours, reincarnation is all the brevity our lord can
stomach.

mother's confessions for intelligent life

you will not come across the alien I was molested by.
I replaced myself
like the nothing
that happened.

maker
when I think about you
I dont

incarnate
after we roll the dead dog from its towel and into gods mouth
we take
for its tooth
a flys
grave.
satans kid continues to play chicken with a farm machine
in a slow
not still
life.

exposure
in a hotel bathtub
beneath a crooked
showerhead
two boys
on thumb war
number seven
are seen
by the same
hallucination
their colorblind
father
had
during
his dry spell, his bug
collecting
craze
when their mother
was the god
she went back
to being

childlike answer
I am made mostly of trying to find my way back to bread

choice echo
have mostly boys and then have one of them need god. stop the spread
of suicide by not only creating an angel but by creating an angel that
knows to cover its mouth. kiss any person who says its your daughters
height that keeps her from landing the role of jesus. assume you are
bait for touch. dedicate yourself to men populations bore. put the male
in male slut. ice your knuckles. give death a day here and there with
crow. switch crows. the past cant leave itself alone.

a photographic memory that applies only to acts of eating

in the oar I broke on my brothers knee
I found
a human
tooth.
here is a lamb
floating
in the reflection
of a star.

ana
the power
fathers have
over death
is the power
to reduce
god
to a mothers
inheritance.
my lawnmower is a dog.
my sound
is the sound
neither
make.
pray you
me
to the part of nothing
that is no.

background stories
in one car, a baby with a staring problem is on hour number three. in
another, my sister takes photos of her dog. dying is a chew toy. be as
unmoved as your attackers.

heyday
after many nights spent praying to my mom, gender was my only option.
by some miraculous failure of successive thought, I watched as I
vanished before I could become the living proof I needed to circumvent
nostalgia. does god still control himself in front of children? you made a
robot from the parts of a peeping tom.

themes for mitochondrion

your sons disorder
is used
by some
to draw
a straight line, a sleeping
circle
my soul is eating all my food
agenesis
of what
of nostalgias
panic

viewership
my youth spent trying to see the devil as a young man. my motherly
youth. my rape scene a return to form. cut from yours, you have your
babys eyes. I went unborn. I went beaten. we went together in broad
daylight when broad daylight was gods elevator.

preparedness
you look like youve just been given permission to sleep in your clothes.
its a rape whistle only crows can hear.
itll put sheep
on the moon.

quietus
the past
the one
event
a life
is known for

the creatures the ocean still has for us

at her back
the boy
is thinking
of a letter
and not
of the ghost
his fingers
from. the mothers guess
is early
but correct. always
this sobbing
at the base
of things.

themes for afterlife

you can
in fact
eat your silence
forever
I dont want my food
to tell a story
talk to me
of light, of mothers
milk, talk
is for the hungry
ask my hands
it is always dark
in the baby
youre having
and in the dream
Im

themes for scripture

in our own way of toying
with the disappeared
we name
weekly
a new
inside animal.
that something comes when called
separates
the lonely
from the missing. if it matters to god
let it matter
to god
the eraser
of lightning. in this Ohio
one is always a day behind being destroyed by the past.

inocula
I put my sense
of taste
behind me
by placing
a sick child
beside one
sicker.
a crow is not a star.
loss
is the salt
of now.

in the beginning
wear a cheap mask
to bed.
kid, your mama
she cant
touch a baby
without touching
a baby
thats hers.
small brain,
I have less
to wash.

fishing hand
a demon with three days to live is given to my fathers 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 gods that our food is the food we forgot to
poison. to pray, I am left with little more than an animals 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.

causations
by the time a god brings itself to bury the legless creature that in its
death rises to the top of the aquariums dream, there are already so
many things fish and fish-like, there and not, scoring
for proof
of god
the grave of my grave is thought

birth and death

when you were with god, I alone doubted the sincerity of your absence

appetence
I stab my father with a carrot so I can say he lives to the pacifist who
broke the television we were called to witness. I run after my children
because they think they are chasing nothing down the street. god blows
two bubbles that become the eyes of a crucified man. the last arm in the
world will be a prosthetic arm made for the toddler who will die in the
meat of the dying. your father has an apple in one hand and a tomato in
the other. everyone is poor. everyone is responsible for how it is
portrayed to the bun in the oven. the softness we reserve for women
has gone to our teeth.

baby deaths
i.
the ghost
suddenly aware
of sleep
goes on
to be
the same size
awake.
ii.
will never bite. never ask
someone
taller
to bend
the branch
down.
iii.
as far as hands go, these are very large.

barbaric terms
each twin
slower
than the last, she spits
over my dead body
baby
after baby
out.
as news
of the massacre
spreads, the young
call it mother
by word
of mouth.

fears
it is not uncommon, when placed on its stomach for the first time, for the
infant to break a rib.
man creates the world as something to sleep on.
some water is trapped underwater.

(for brothers)
-for Jacobwhen I say there are four of me, I want you to imagine you can board a
paper airplane to resume your life elsewhere as a supplier of matches to
the triangle of vague nations.
-for Noahwhen I say there are four of me, I want you to fill equally exile and
absence with a color youve seen twice.
-for JPwhen I say there are four of me, I want you to put my face to a face and
imagine two hands shaking beneath a god with six.

ache
not all of my childhood was spent in a stopped car listening to my
mother wonder aloud if the monkey in the light was okay. not all of my
childhood took time. I was the tooth my teeth chose. my father was a
magician because his hands had a terrible memory. he touched only
those things that had turned into what they were. stone is the maker of
stone.

breathing spells
I chased only
the brother
Id dreamed
of beating.
I told my sister
she didnt have
a tail. told mother
its not suicide
unless you ask
to be born. I had a hand
for the year
father
went quiet
a hand
for the year
father
went quiet
for good. had dolls
over which
dying
out of character
held sway.

dyad
the homeless woman pokes my belly and says in all creation Ive got no
middle. says she catches herself sometimes pretending to be homeless.
says we ought to stone god. says we do with prayer. says the first
spider she talked to could speak but didnt. says she has the two jobs
my dads between. says she can hear mom or mama in the radio of my
brokenness. says angels cant go mad, cant parallel park, cant feign
surprise. says she eats with her ears. says she can stop anytime. says
Im someones sugarbones. says sound is what god knocks over looking
for his mouth. says it could speak its name and it wasnt spider. says to
hell with speech though it be our singings salt.

how to receive the crucifixion story

burn the scarecrow
your mother
translates for.
make your daughter
believe
that a virgin
is a nobody, that a somebody
does her own
stunts.
hire
griefs interpreter
on a part-time
basis
to blow
your son
in your sons
presence.
as a symbol of your absence
disappear.

modicums
the child
saint
of separation
anxiety
eats
so little
that when
he
or she
chews
open
mouthed
a ghost
gets
a birthmark

mother sends me her sunny thoughts on loving the telescope

I didnt know I was naked until I had somewhere to be.
can one get pregnant from being pregnant?

sisters
sisters,
I am standing in my dream house with a fork from my real. my best
friend is overseas shooting lame the animals of those who eat his
religion. on the lam from white flight, my brother is holed up in an
apartment blocking for a staged photograph of a fake baby that shrieks
as if its on location.

themes for sister

be the abuser you want to victimize. repeat your fathers compelled
evocations. if fat, absorb your mothers least favorite hiding place. if
not, borrow your brothers future. plan it around a mirror.

themes for transition

I used my nearest
sister
to strike
my brother
whod wasted
the last tooth
of his horse
meant
for a slingshot
on a meal

for a scarecrow
the power
to mother
went out
father
compared
puppets
our heaven of socks and string

the father
I am walking up a hill the dark is trying to move. my mother has a way
with words. my mother has a baby. reading is a kind of crying. the baby
is crying because the baby has lost track of something that possesses
nearness. there are two babies. one is always blind and one is blind
when it eats. never lose a tooth you can swallow.

the friends my kids lose

if I am harder than most
on god
its because
hes mine

the mice
the conditions for mentally composing a suicide note for his sister are
less than perfect. shes sitting on his bed with a cigarette in one hand
and his baseball glove on the other. both hear three traps snap shut in
the kitchen. sister gags and it makes him think about gagging. now no
more, these were the heart of the note.

the visits
the sex machine has begun to breathe on her own. father sucks a
brown bruise into mothers half of my cigarette. I could be doing a
handstand in a prison yard or watching as my cell is turned upside
down. brother uncurls a finger from his made fist so deliberately I know
he means it to be a hard-on. I crush my eyes with my eyes and try to
remember the name my son gave to the loose tooth we hung together
from a doorknob. was my son told me the puppets need our hair.

sleeping in our clothes

as sure as death
does its job
to keep one
from further
dying
I carry
my boy
to bed
where I remove
his remaining
shoe
and am spied
doing so
by my wife
who thinks of me
as one
who acts
in theory
on a thought
to kill
some spider
we both know
to see

numbers game
with a kid for each hiding spot, father thanks god while mother takes a
head count. I am back from the fair with a rendering of how I will look to
my rapist. my brother is already in position and has contorted himself in
a manner he thinks will convince me he can shrink his ears. my sister is
nowhere a bumblebee cant find. our puppy picks a new favorite
because it bruises easily. numbers game or no numbers game,
loneliness is coming.

observance
when drought came
to my brother
I left
for the city
where I found myself
blanketing
manhole covers
with my coat
for women
who gathered
on rooftops
with men
whose daughters
had been killed
for jumping
rope

in Ohio, when mortal

my brother
jokes
in the barn
about suicide.
the fuck
would eat snow
if it came
from a cow.
I ask him
does he think
mom will miss
two cigarettes.
shell miss one, miss yours.
I am half his keeper.

image
and do not
believe, as such, that yours
is a body
leads god
to inquire

future quiet
tell them they are nothing more than the lot the dream surrenders. that
gender is gods eyepatch. child abuse has its own race. that dead or
alive, god has never been sick. to stop acting as if they were born
tomorrow.

appearances
I choose an icicle to be the mirrors rifle as brother puts a cigarette
behind sisters ear and calls her transported. father eats outside before
smoking in. mother does what she does for wind. hangs a scarecrows
keys.

captive
the woman knows she isnt the one her angel wants. god says we can
do this all day. I chase the car until it runs out of batteries. mother
needs little. an extra night to sleep on the loss.

patch
not for the disabled saint
of benevolent trauma
is there a thin line
between birth and death.
I mow the lawn like Im trying to avoid a spotlight.
trauma
is an imperfect
inherited
circle
run
around a wheelchair
by a youth
knows
that even the devil
has the first half
of his life.

sitting
the spotlight
a dog
pushes
with its nose.
not yet death
but deaths
wheelchair.
a revised
stance
on angels
as recognized
by those
one has
not met.

themes for reunion

the lost baby
for a moment
is dooms
afterlife.
I dont think I can be kind anymore.
alone time
is patience
as melodrama. the second coming
of my fathers belief
is a memory
that talks to itself
while saying
dont make of me
a habit.
dear godless koan,
my wheelchair has an ashtray.

themes for rehab

memory proves god
in that it proves
god
is lazy.
she oversees bathroom breaks for the crucified.
I was born without a twin.

was
ask now my father if it still believes the present to be the future of a past
life.
ask then if it unscrewed one day each inessential light bulb that my
party would have balloons.
violence in movies. also, food. my mistake. I glue myself
to nothing. my shyness
is kind of
my angel.
the body invents the soul it recalls.

yes
I pocket the white root of my enemys fantasy and bribe my father with
money for a lottery ticket. I hear god say yes it will be the god of all. its
a good day and on such my mother swallows her brothers morning
cigarette and tries to get someone to kiss her neck. on such my sister
wonders deep down if her doll is wearing enough lotion. I think to flee
but know fleeing looks on paper too much like what it is. the skull is the
grave of the brain, the skull is the boat if other houses catch fire its
because ours is done burning.

unearth
make your cry to the lord of obnoxious minimalism.
vomit
all you want
underwater. nothing leaves
the imagination.

moonsick
it is okay that my sons face goes white. I am using my son for water.
some of his blood leaves him to become a rooster. some of his blood
hardens in the coffin of his wrist. some of his blood enters an
incantatory narrative. some of his blood is the body. some believe the
body is droughts battery. I am big on bodies. you might know my
father by his spearheading of the ghost indictments. or by the clock you
call love that he called the lifespan of his wifes pregnant hostage.

neonate
I named you once before you were born and once after. your room was
blue for so long. youd kick and Id press my thumb to your fathers wrist.
my hand is still wet from putting jesus as a baby beneath a nervous
goldfish. I know what happens to people like me.

themes for moon

dad says we live on a rock from gods garden of near death
experiences.
says throw a fucking baseball.
I could not see through my father
so I put my hand there
and it became a baby
with all its fingers
I was not raised by scarecrows.
had a toy that answered to wolves.

themes for contact

mid-cigarette
my sister
remembers
to smoke.
god hops
in place
on one foot.
most of our health
is rabbit
health.
not for nothing
the look on your face
boy
when youve nowhere
to put a baby.
also,
the drawings that didnt make the bible.

themes for tattoo

to tell god
he swallowed
a thunderstorm
you will need
a seashell
I say to the boy
that before
this brain
of his
there were other
brains
the angels
thought
were bugs
malnutrition
can close
a wound
on the moon, my name is Noah

inseparable
mother is watching a show that keeps her from picturing the gods who
portray us. father is choosing an ice cube to bury. myself I am very
close to stripping for the cigarette my sister rescued from a babys
crayon box in a dream that smelled like her clothes.

knees
visiting hours are set by a god who knows I smoke. leaving my mark
means Ive pressed the barrel of a cap gun into my brothers temple
because the fucker keeps scooping into his ballcap the same toad. my
two fathers are here to bounce things off my mother when she prays.
sit long enough and semen will dry them together.

gate
I bring his shoes
in from the yard
and ask my wife
is father
here
my son
is a sound
that tells me
beauty
is a sound
that tells me
nothing
god hounds
my perfectly
childless
and too
permissive
brother
whose first
word
was password

godless
godless
balloon
animal

difficult pregnancies
the crow
in each
of its two
dreams
had
an arm.
father said
be
on the lookout
son
for the receiver
of an old
phone. to this day
I ask god
because mom
wont
how sad
can one person
be?

distant nature
suicide
writes of you
in third
person

if played too long

hide and seek
becomes hide
and hide

I crawl in one ear

and you
the other
as the name
of the insect
escapes
god

our love of dolphins

arc
between my mother
and her paper
cup
Ive heard tell
that even sorrow
has a life.
father yells
at dogs, at the necessary
born, at me
in the mirror
to turn
around
get someone
can clean
this up. father calls
light
the unspilled
blood
of the god
we're in. he suffers on his path
the suppressed
amnesia
of faghood. being gay
has long been
being open

to the possibility
hes not.

baptismal
while my mother
swims
in the lake
where my father
learned
to coexist
with his ability
to be
alone,
to which
my father
brought
the seashell
his father
coined
the oceans
bible,
I sleep
the sleep
of my hair
not the sleep
of its brush

basics
because he is asleep, he does not find himself sleeping in the tub.
something slides from his belly and becomes wedged. his dream
business goes under even in dream. he makes eyes at CPR manikins.
his son, his life, pushes for legs.

altar
the baby is too light. its mother puts it on a scale that reminds her of a
plate her empty childhood couldnt break. its mother invites neighbor
boys to punch her in the stomach. some of the boys bail. some dont.
the mothers nickname doubles as her real. the baby is not called
bricks.

crumbs for mayhem

a cigarette butt
misses its mark, the largest
head
the childs
ever
had
the shut-ins
meet their food
halfway
the angels
burn only
the books
theyve time
to read
it snows, churchbell
snows
on the crippled glow
of an Ohio
cemetery
where later
Ill brush
a white hand
from the arm
of a stone
cross

heteroclite
I show signs of having been alone beside a machine. I can count on my
fingers the fingers Ive lost. I am not like a newborn. my feet are each
one smaller than the last as are my meals. like my father before me, I
have a hard time being drawn to what attracts me. like my mother, I
cook for those whove gone in and out of the eating disorder condoned
by the church of sleep. like sister, I watch as my brother sets
forgiveness as a trap for god. not every animal I see is an illusion. my
eyes open twice to be flashed by the same short life. anything I name I
give a prime number. appear to the sick I remember.

lapse
because there is more than one city, my brother falls asleep in the back
of a taxi hes pretending is an ambulance. my sister remains close to
father but not closer than he is to the mouth he used on the woman who
reached me before I could get the neighbor girl to eat a rock for cussing
at the egg shed given my babys name. its turned up again, the dog
whistle I buried. my brother likes to say he is no later than the man his
dying adores. I still show faith my signature move.

longing for Gen

the baby boy stiffens at the sight of unrolled dough. we say he is
pointing the way to god. crippled by the sadness in her hand, his
mother keeps a claw mark like one keeps diary.

spirit nerve
it grows overnight too big for its bed. in dream it hammers at the nails
head still hidden in the infants palm. when mistaken it is mistaken for
the hand it stings with a fastball. it is all man to the boy with a frisbee. on
land it has a dog that growls in gentle code at the untouched bowls of
dogs underwater. traces of it can be found in the model glue scraped
from the space shuttle that depresses your ghost.

the invite
the path of least woman.
not even
my kind
of violence.
fathers faith needs some time alone.
shes had work done.
the headaches
are real.

themes for sobriety

outside the garage door
of a cement building
I break no bread
with the silence
of my nose
what a clown
the wounds depth
leads me
to believe
in a part
of my fathers
leg
I didnt know
I had
mothers pain
is other
pets, the devil
is the devil
forever
-

this egg on my face

is from the eye
of yours
that hatched

themes for woman

prayer
dedicates
for god
his time
to memoir.
fiction is the blood of a short person
spilling from a tall.
I enter again the room of the screaming man
who was screaming
when I left.
silence is par for the quiet.

pressure
the original thought in my head was to be postdated by god until god
learned he had a baby on the way. I had children until I could only have
four. what I say to self-harm is pay attention. my daughter raises her
hand on the off chance she buried something in her teachers body.
(we have stopped talking
but I can squeeze her anorexia into a phone booth) poverty myth: I
groom my sons with the beak of bird abandoned. real time I tell my
tongue its goddamn curtains for the mouth Im getting. full circle my
daughter surrounds those brothers of hers that mine clone.

rebellion
the looks my brother got when he sang seemed to say someone sold
satan the wrong voice. stories of an all-seeing god pegged my sister as
the loudest person in two rooms. to me, mystery had nothing to do with
church. if Id survived, I had done so to wear clothes. food and weather
were the twins of a middle child.

having
I give the rat my dollhouse at night. our basement has a disease. my
brother brings a flashlight to dinner. mother says poor devil to the poor
devil she cant stop eating. I have my own language that in hindsight is
an age gap. I am so heavy. I jump and water gets out of my way.
between you and me, sister sees me coming and throws herself on the
trapdoor weve made a game of rolling eggs over. father shares a hat
with god like therell be something in it.

area
somewhere, the mostly boy body pretends to be explored. we are not
we. my mother ruins a sketch of my mother. my father smokes two
packs a day because online he was called prematurely haunted. the
name of your existence
is
priest retires to make umbrella for jack-in-the-box. (her bus
is rain)

angel
outside the room you believe god to be trapped in, cry
or dont.

claims
I enter with my small life to profile the impressions you did of my
brother. these kids, they cough in photos. as for her, her fathers voice
could up and speak at a moments notice. I move the gun daily. if my
head wasnt glued on, Id have lost my ears to the hive mind of ghost
forgiveness. my brother liked to play leap frog. fuck art. we live too
long.

extract
with what shes learned online, she puts her age between nine and
twelve.
based on the following, her attacker
walks.
(thats funny, he didnt sound invisible)
how do you pray
for a clock?

harmonizer
notes from my brother include moments of outage. typo, testament.
Ive never experienced anything so awful as talking. during sex I
pretend I am a surge protector. my death is over. I slip into god and its
painful bad. sorry, I took the asshole my phone had in it and made him
write this. back to god I feel Im praying him through the first break-up
he remembers. headlines rip me the fuck outta mom.

heel and hoof

the farness of heaven is the farness of twin. a packed theater starts a
fire in a factory. a mother and a father clay themselves as figures put to
sleep in a clawfoot tub. across the board, a boy is crushed after
witnessing for the image of the crowd-surfing girl he was made in. you
cant eat touch.

input
I am the photo my visions take.
high
on memorization
the mother
has to believe
in god
for god
to have
a safe
word.
the boy is dirt and noise. is hindsights
gospel.
loneliness, meet maker.

maturations
to heal her father, she asks me to brush her hair. she promises that
when Im done shell not only show me the scab but also remove it so I
can see where her batteries go. the knots in her hair are ungodly. she
says to leave them. she says she can get any cat to come inside.
masturbation is new to me. I almost announce aloud that I must look
often like I am trying to get a pair of scissors to eat snow.

post
I exhaust my children by going back and forth on god

means
it doesnt take a genius but it does take my brother to see the frogs
been tortured. he splits my friends into two groups, telling one he has a
month to live and the other that Im dying. he pulls me aside and asks if
Im up to finishing what hes currently calling The Mourners Guide to
Interrogation which began a month is a long time to the instantly bored.

the expectation
we draw gods attention away from what were having by showing a
short film shot by your youth in which a godlike figure creates the
worlds first womanizer. we kiss and our kiss goes from being medically
fragile to being medically nuanced. instead of paying our water bill, we
fill the tub with sugar and wait open-mouthed for what can dig its own
grave.

terribly father
I use the dream to ask god about the dream I keep having. my son falls
down the stairs while holding a baby girl. I am too late but not too late to
piss the blood from his toes because his arms are broken. the baby is
nowhere to be found and I have no one to contact. my son is going in
and out of sleep and I tell myself this is the end of my outsider status. Id
start my day but god needs more time.

themes for tail

the nonfiction section in my fathers library of sleep
is faith
mother comes to me in a dream to tell me shes thinking of pulling out
epilepsy isnt something you can see. clearly, its the snake
one tries to give it to
when people are gone, theyve gone to ask

themes for sea

the prodigal son of simplicity
the pill poppers
demographic
the mouth
as it keeps
the face
from parting
the canyon
of where
not
to snort
the ashes
of risen
sheep
paper
and the cup
its being

themes for scorpion

theres the god I remember.
Im fasting
for two.

reserves
it is gods 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.

milestones
at birth, your life flashes before your eyes. you have a brother and with
him think that if one could record the exact moment of your mothers
dying, her death will disappear. the drink in your glass is made from the
skin that couldnt bring itself to be your mouth. some of it is crying but
most of it is putting the word fuck in its place. out of necessity you
create a crow that you might be warned of its crow-like replacement.
your hands stick to what they know.

scenarist
the give in my tooth makes me think my father has two left hands.
the give
in my brothers
brings me
to the tree
that took
his last. to that day
he sang
god is glove
to the hose
that broke
my mother. I am at the end of my blood.
theres a rareness
to him
not many
see.

signal
as my face
will one day
correct
my body
I expose
the elements
to my
ugliness
my son is my search
history
headlights
when headlights
emerge
emerge
from a period
of non
worship
-

(wave your arms

long enough
youll have sticks
for arms)
they dont
happen
in my
lifetime
the terrible
things
Ive done

silent bodies
theres something about holding the stick and theres something about
throwing it. two things I can walk to while thinking of how my
grandmother lost her first husband and only son to water. two things I
can cough into my mothers blindfold as my father soberly misses as
many trees as he doesnt. two silent bodies of dog named after what
came. my son after what came back.

many
one of my eyes
is my fathers
alcoholic
eye.
says anonymous
a blood
dipped
balloon
is not
the baby
the angel
had.
says mother
into moral
isolation
the hands
you bring
are dry. says hers
sleep
orphans
fatigue.

intelligence
magic amplifies in my loneliness a single flaw.
a bird, a high window. sound of a brain cell.
hunger and its unremarkable kitchen.
as a doctor I hammered the babys knee.
bio, and the undisclosed location of gods recovery.
harm is harms audience.

my only
my second attempt
inspired
by my first.
my third
a success
my fourth
could envy.
my first
a superpower
given
to my brother
who noticed
mid dream
his dream.

masters
I have just had it written down for me how I am not classically racist. I
am alone. I am brief stay of bullet. god is using each hair on my head to
scribble on my sons thought process. when I think of crab legs I think in
color of the lightning bolt it snows inside. I miss mom. gospel, gospel
that I hang these rags for invisible crows.

island
my son
has enough
light
for gods
cheek. in pain
I am over
the moon.

high
mother, in the early stages of her food fight with god.
father, I cant bury
my face.
in lieu
of the lords
dog, raise
the lords
bone.

I miss you
when younger
than sex
but older
than grief
my greatest
ambition
was to give
context
to the left hand
applauding
despair.
now, what I do
for grief
is translate
a passage
from one language
to the same.

identifiers
the saint of the poolside titty twister brings a syringe to a puppet show
where his father is busy not meaning all women. brother is showing me
around the space he promises will be a kick in the balls. I am waiting to
donate blood to little baby bear hug when I hear we share a mother.

themes for gut

sister
she bleeds
in the bath
thinking
weve finally
run out
of water.
of the cheering
mothers, my mean
ass
mother
wants to be alone
with the two
it took
to cut a baby
in half.
myself
I take it on the nose
the baseball
my father
doesnt
crush.

themes for supply

thing is, my eyes are rarely bigger than my stomach. mother says I have
a face for makeup. I babysit often. victims, mostly, of tooth on tooth
violence. my brother drinks to our fathers medicine. water thats been
walked on.

ins
night
the land
of a single
unseen
settler
father
half eye, half oil
self, self panic

host for David Smith

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

attention
I saw my father
standing on a chair
waiting for god
to take him
for a walk.
I started sleepwalking
around the same time
I pretended
to sleepwalk.
there was this bible
one had to step on
to reach the phone.

bliss is your mothers terrain

I dont have the temper my memory has.
skin cell, star.
a mouthful of the floods
haunted
soil. an entry
made by a god
at seven
days
sober.
overseas, another ant
in the darkness

buzzer therapy
dearest ear,
god is not my fault.
I can hear the worms message,
the anthills thunder.
revelation comes
once a week
to come out
of its coma. between us,
my rapist belongs to me.

bearings
Im here for the music
you can keep
your baby
Im here
for the swing
I write
on the days
my son
is sick
if heard
I overhear
there was more
to him
in the womb
no dream is strong enough to put a hospital
on the map

in heaven
the past
is the present
that left
for earth

craftsmanship
she thought nothing
of the penis
shaped
bar
of soap, and nothing
of the boys
whod no doubt
worked together
in close
quarters
to create
from their
gods
the ball
god
dropped, and still
nothing
of the note
in her locker
instructing her
on how
to take
a bath- not everything
takes the form

of a sickly
double
afraid
to meet
its match

deformity
pregnant, my wife
scraps
her report
of missing
person.
as a disenchanted
surgeon
might find
religion,
I search your face for what god kept.

drownings
a baby screams because it doesnt know that anything is wrong.
the wind has no past.
when my brother kicks, my mother says
hands off
hes getting
a haircut.

dox
you begin to draw me and I begin to hurt. I know what a brain looks like
and Ive heard what I can only say sounds to me like many rats worrying
as one to keep dry. maybe I can tell you about my ears by telling you
about my first bike and how its handlebars grew and grew. did you
know your grandmother broke nothing but was always on the lookout for
pieces of glass? anything she swallowed she swallowed to strengthen
her knees. some of your drawings seem to believe what theyre
peopled to believe. is being childish something melancholy can attain?
I rode to where the school had been before it was moved. wherever it
was, it was empty. a father carried his trampled child up a slide and a
mother identified me incorrectly by the back of my head.

fates
the man lost his voice threatening to smack my mouth off. the woman
unplugged the tv. in its own way, the game was on. it was the night
jesus went from being indifferent to being abstract. the night someones
dog let the ear of another from its mouth . as for the baby on our
doorstep, the same someone brought it food.

themes for exile

its father tells god how it was briefly haunted by two ghosts that began
to see each other. it doesnt mention by name the whos who of having
babies. by the scar of milk in its belly, god accepts on cruelty the
continued presence of the left handed coalition of something in the
water. a good mother burns whats been devoured.

fieldwork
the evacuated court of my sons illness.
the blind mans
missing
eyelid.
the grief, the broth, the reacquired thrift.
the dispersed body. the hotbeds
of skeletal
trauma.
the dance music as mothers
chthonian
darling.
the sorrow method. the rhythm.

angel woe
poor devil, his eyes are so dark he cant close them. dont get my
brother started. as soon as I stop moving, theres a picture of me still. a
story develops in broomstick hell.

caste
brother builds a time machine from trigger warning porn. brother puts
his little earthquake to bed. brother swears on gods jawbone hell pinch
a baby from a pouch of tobacco. move for move, I match our mothers
stillness. my eating acts alone. a symbol for leaving a mark.

handler
my babysitters best friend pins me to the floor with her knees and
makes me say the word fag to my fag brother whos still facing the
corner he was put in for kissing a mirror. in heaven, you dont have a
mouth. the man who said hed hurt before letting pain get stuck with a
woman
is dying.

god muscle
when dressing the disabled child in front of family
my language
is often
the one
I use

root effects for Miles J. Bell

like hes 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, aliens
heaven
he is old
but not before
he knows it.

stage presence
on the life of his mother
loneliness
was the spell
he could not
recall

the entertainment
from ear to god-bitten ear
you
are poison.
in my youth
I was quiet.
there, I said it.
the food is not a dream
but here it comes.

themes for hand

I feel nothing
for her
but also
nothing
butshe is
then
a writer, partial
to now, and to nows
book.
is
then
prayer, loyal
to the past
most
current, to the believer
who contacts
touch.

successor
it is coming to an end but I am still very proud to have kept my hands
from my eyes for so long. as for my ears, he hits me for letting them
ring. I hear by example. I hear your father doesnt need to look to know
hes been caught by his reflection. as a last act, I hold this baby over a
rain puddle, the devils television.

screamer
god says
you have the soul
of a tapeworm.
the luck
youre in
is your father
the kisser
of baseballs.
the sound
in my body
do you think
its gone?

peril
I bit my tongue
when my tongue
was a cloud.
take cover, bones,
says my daughter
dancing.
I crushed my son
like a gift
and offered
god
my tactile
outlook.
stay small, future.
persuade
a peephole
to show
some blood.

move
I know it is common
in drawings
to place the dream
above the boy
having it.
the contents of my mourning
include a phrase
I acquired
in secret
from a man
whose legs
were not
crushed.
I can hear myself seeing.

firings
home sweet brain
activity.
dog door, bible.
a brick
from the wall
of crow.
father, thunderbolt, tongues
for totem.
outing.
the light
under which
I fought.

embrace
the girl who cries wolf
cries wolf
to three men
whose sons
are dead

themes for hotel

mom would start in on god so fiercely that we became preoccupied with
doors. we got to saying and Im taking the baby with me at the close of
anything said with passion. by the time our speaking allowed for
speaking parts, youd think a cameraman had asked to use the
bathroom. father had his moments. being thin is an adventure. this
egg has given me an idea for a different kind of chicken.
agewise, I was closer to my parents than most of the kids I knew of.

recordings
our father was on the hook for his mothers failed symbolism. our god
slipped into character but not before we gave thanks. we ate as a unit.
we kissed, or agreed that kissing was second only to swallowing. we
grew in secret a garden of hair. going online was rare. we feared satan
but only as much as we feared tattoo removal. in the end, you thought
more of us than our subconscious ringleader.

fringe appeal
mother is too far gone to start small. she is, as they say, pinpointing the
outcome of a child blessed with field vision. I am not my father. my
father is one of three men shortlisted for your sisters pregnancy by the
cult viewership of a propaganda film that showed my brothers brain
sticking out of a blanket. my father brings my brother like a knife to a
knife fight as heaven and hell receive different parts of the same bomb.
with another word for word, I have a woman on the inside who at mine
will recover god from gods plan and your daughters kite from a
manhole.

comma, rage for Jake, for Amy

in the beginning,
his mother and father
were there
to be
the parents
hed lost.
his first tooth
anchored
a ghost
within
shouting distance
of the boat
named
for ghost. he amassed
a useless
vocabulary
that nonetheless
included
the word
amidst. when women
and children
waged war
for the men

whod agreed
on the drug
god
would take, he burned
etymologys
least favorite
haunt
with a fire
hed sucked
from a sword
the lives we touch are evil.
go
to a different
hell.

cyclorama
during the assault, I was seen praying an oceanographer into heaven by
all but god. a body entered a nursing home to find a suitable head. I
stayed put to care for the little blood they say never hurt anyone. I have
since held that some have both haloes of bird and star. that any man
with two has a single unnecessary blindfold. long
that there is no wrong way to collect errata.

disability jargon
i.
when it opens the bomb
it knows
like my brain knows
what it sees
ii.
homicide grief
is a recording
gods message
speaks to
iii.
eight years old
she leaves the trampoline
in her bodys
fearful
accounting
of self

elsewhere
accepted
an illustration
for her fathers
book
of madness
called
a shortage
of recent
absence

themes for shadow

when toothpick young you see a snake go mad with second nature and
a sponge dragging your mother through nothings data

themes for mother

shake a broom
at the sky
then make
the ocean
watch
have a kid
in the next
life
to a highly
visible
other
become
attached
marry
and ruin
sight
unseen

gauze
the boys mother is biting off less than he can chew. her insomnia
has put her inside a worm
her body
tries
to fill. her milky eyed
husband
revs a tow truck
to death
in a heavy fog. it is possible, humanly
possible
theres nothing
to see here. that her god
is, in a sense,
seizure activity
in the boys

spirit
animal.

divide
tired of mom touching its food, the baby comes early. we call this
moment the buzzards injured adoration of a surplus crow.
last supper, I see only men.

themes for star

in a small attic
a boy
on all fours
being weakened
by a spiders
dream
is putting
an ear
to the roof
of his sisters
dollhouse. for making
the wrong
sounds
for animals
poor sister
was lowered
into the baby
you were born
to lift
by two
scarecrows
youd think
were separated
at death
for the way
they dont
carry on.

silent work
naming
the stillborn
within hail
of the snake
loving
boy
who can psalm
a basketball

south
I slash myself to recreate the map of shortcuts your mind blanks on.
under sky, some doctor induces the angel our mother became. two
boys, while still in our underwear, are witnessed putting their heads
together without knowing it is okay to be so by any father whose
madness works from home. hell, the baby with its ears could be saying
look at this fucking flower.

oratorio
instead of singing me to sleep
mother would put a cigarette
in my mouth
and have me
hold my breath
while she peeled
an orange. my feet
were the first
to go.

christenings
in his shorter
life
the father
accepts
a remembered
total
of two
persons:
the dry humper of the drowned.
the maker
of astronaut
oars.

auriculars
no
was my sons
seventh
word.
I had asked
permission
to record
what I grandly
thought
to be
the rhetoric
of the nude.
my weirdo daughter
had grown by then
to say
nearby
that heaven
is the distance
to heaven, and god
uses
too many
birds.
no ear
nor entry
in the diary
of my mouth
ached.

bid
that suicide
be
a medical
procedure
for the layman
in
you. that evac
be exodus.

other
whenever the doorbell rings, father says its broken. the outside world
must be a quiet place to lose a baby. wow. the scratch on my memory
makes me think we had a cat
or a mother
with time.

bloodless for Noah

my brother was blinded by a crow.
Id tell you the story
but know
you hate it.
fuck you.
brothers darkroom
became
the crows.

concord
cap gun. swag from an uncles suicide.
the daughter
the ghost
cartoonist.
voodoo dolls
in isolation. isolation
in its prime.

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

cream
father sends me to school after being won over by what mother calls the
artifice of experience. father puts the dirt in my blood. father cares for
the doll of my instructor, a woman whose pet writes on the board that
we feel neglected. my twin sister puts gently two eggs in a bra shes
saving herself for. I dont hug. I dont hug and so prove my fathers rib
that I am the tombstone half of tits and tombstone. my boyfriend says I
can have any girl I want but he also says his mouth can bob for
snowballs. this is my body the teachable moment.

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.

cancer
my father jokes that he is only attracted to gay men.
that my two left hands
mustve rubbed a balloon
the wrong way. that if I kiss
his bald
head
Id better
have with me
a comb.

alcoholics
our impossible guest, the inventor of vicarious living

closings
trespassers
shoot themselves.
your son gets hired
by city
to illustrate
a book on mirrors
for households
with one
adult.
my son
dies
before the machine
that keeps him
alive
turns on.
a doll in doll country
burns its nose
trying to enter
the future
museum
of racist
oddities.
my hand tries my hand at forming
firstborn
erasures

using only
redactions.
god is exiled
for bringing
the animal
its childlike
behavior.
I am far too animated.
your body is the notice
eyes
give.

the motherlife
once
while being
tickled
and once
when god
was painting
my blood
I let
the itch
be

Eating the Animal Back to Life

(poems)
July 2015
Barton Smock lives in Columbus, Ohio. he writes daily at
kingsoftrain.wordpress.com and has books available at
http://www.lulu.com/spotlight/acolyteroad