sparkle there was a time when i wouldn’t notice the flash and weft of sun on water / back when i didn’t need to notice god in the wind / back when i didn’t need tangible evidence / back when i could just be unholy walking with the thunder and the broken psalms // but now i know i am broken and faithless / now i must collect each strand of light as it falls and weave it into my splayed chest / a threaded rosary keeping all the brightness in my blood / i must do this because i have to laugh with my children / because i have to show them there is music on the black waters / that there are sapphires on all of the graves sin i am falling asleep without my cpap / the middle of my body keeps opening until the feeling of being without a shell becomes soothing / the blood as a mist the bones crackling into a fine chalk / the presence inside of me now something singing / the words now a sloping breeze over the bed / but when i try to fly up the charcoal castles and canyons i fall jagged ba
Shaking Sticks Today a happy dog bouncing in the yard won’t allow me to consider suicide or murder the sky’s a clichĂ© blue & it’s warm for November shaking sticks she wants to play why not? Even Light Sunbeams warm the room but skunk my bottled beer everything, even light has a downside. Bart Solarczyk is a lifelong resident of Pittsburgh, PA. Over the past forty years his poems have been published in print & online in a variety of magazines, journals, anthologies, broadsides & chapbooks. He is the author of three full-length collections of poetry including his most recent book, Carried Where We Go, available from Redhawk Publications & on Amazon.