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. |
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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:
