Barry T. Smith

Poetry

Poetry is my most precious creative expression. My poetry deals with themes of wonder, death, love, life, and my rural upbringing. I have been writing under the nom de plume of Inlet as a means of avoiding the reader's association of my gender, personal relationship, etc. with my poems.

However, I am working on my first chapbook of poems to be published some time n 2024 under my own name. Below are just two examples of my poetry. Find more examples on the Inlet instagram page.

Tall mountain said to bright star,
“We are akin, the ever unchanged!”
When he finished speaking
his head was low and round as a monk,
and the star had burst into ten thousand new things.

I searched out God
under the blood
of the ancient scrolls

I sought my deepest nature
in the sing-song poems
of the spinning mystics

For truth, unqualified,
I squinted over my nose
at dusty-footed thinkers

And there—
in the blue of your wrist
I noticed it

In the shy bones
of your ankle I felt
and wordless knew

Weightless atop your voice,
divine secrets
which I read in you,
my scripture