Two Poems
David Anthony Sam



 
Genetic Geologies
 
Sated with pasts of red clay and coal,
quartz sand and pale gray mud,
I am filled with histories not my own:
Huddling in dark holds of reeking ships
that toss a cargo of flesh with each wave−
Peddling dreams and dry goods in snow
drinking the wine of self-pity and hope−
Arguments shouting Polish over boiling
chicken and perogies while a fire raged
in drunken fireplace reddening the night.
I fail to write the truths of these memories
encoded in my breath and blood, my
flesh layered in genetic geologies that
I try to parse like the folds of the earth
after the eons have uplifted mountains.




​
Black Vultures
 
Like the harsh flap
of a windborne tarpaulin,
the broad black wings
unleave the bare trees
and rise into sunset thermals.
 
The near silent winds
carry the carrion call,
and the harvesters of death
circle like dark smoke
from a final burning.



​

About the Author:  David Anthony Sam poetry has appeared in over 70 publications and he has four collections.  With degrees from Eastern Michigan University (BA, MA) and Michigan State University (PhD), Sam lives now in Virginia with his wife and life partner, Linda, and in 2017 retired as president of Germanna Community College. He was the featured poet in The Hurricane Review (2016) and Light: A Journal of Photography and Poetry (2017).  Finite to Fail: Poems after Dickinson, was 2016 Grand Prize winner of GFT Press Chapbook Contest after which he began serving as GFT’s Poetry Editor. Visit David's web site here:  

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