Thursday, October 26, 2023

GAS Featured Poet: Bart Solarczyk


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.  
 

An Old Man Being Me 
  
If I must be an old man 
this is how I’ll be: 
  
what I see in the mirror  
pain & goodness in my heart 
the poison I breathe 
& the shit that passes through me 
  
wounded ducks in a row 
beer in the backyard  
a dead wife plump with memories 
& no new wife required 
  
television as white noise 
poems plastered to that frequency  
a mouthful of green fog 
stay hungry, exhale slowly 
  
limping but still moving 
reading then forgetting  
sleeping in a chair  
dreaming ghosts are people  
  
going to the doctor 
going to the doctor 
going to the doctor 
& sometimes there’s good news 
  
what lives behind my eyes  
backflipping pages 
no hero, no ascension  
just an old man being me.  
  
  
  
Sun & Leaves 
  
This is fucked up 
I have cancer 
  
I’m cold 
& my ass hurts 
  
through the window  
a world away 
  
a golden sun 
warms green leaves 
  
but in here 
I have cancer 
  
it’s fucked up 
I watch the window 
  
sun & leaves 
my ass hurts 
  
I’m cold. 
  
  
  
4 Haiku  
  
not quite there- 
preparing for 
my sponge bath 
  
  
ten-thousand 
kindnesses 
& grief still wins 
  
  
driving to the doctor - 
wounded city framed 
in morning’s windshield  
  
  
wings to dust -  
the nothing  
we become  
  
  
  
School Prayer 
  
Bullet holes 
in blackboards 
  
kids & cops 
& killers 
  
America please 
stop it with the guns.  
  
  
  
Write It Down 
  
Write it down 
so you know 
it really happened 
  
write it down 
to bring truth 
to a lie 
  
write it down 
like a Valentine 
love me 
  
while the air 
is still sweet 
write it down.  
 


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