Issue 13
Winter 2003
Sam Silva
http://www.CDbaby.com/cd/samsilva
Sam has several books of his poetry published through a small press in Parkdale Or. These are listed with some of the large internet bookshops - click on the title to go see:
De la Palabra
Art as Anyone's Salvation
Love Against the Grey Winter Mean
Making a Sacrifice Like Art
Sweet Harvests On
THE LABOR OF ANGELS
he was just seventeen
and out of school
and fallen from grace
and renting a room
in a devious place
where he worked one day
and knew
that he could never work again.
May the night-fires burn
for a vagabond
too dumb and drunk
to even fight,
lazy and wicked
beyond a scoundrel's way!
...here is the poet and his song!
Headless human kept dry by the rain
...neither grave to hide in!
...nor castle of love!
Neither love of sin,
nor fear of the sky,
the shelter gained for such a fool
in any bright storm that rocks the night
nor the pained
proverbial darkness
that keeps the day.
WITH LOVE AKIN TO MURDER
With love akin to murder
like the reason
that all of the prophets died
in a morning storm
in all such moments
awash with water
in the chill
and splendor
and half-light
of winter-morning raining
in a kingdom come from night
the son from the father
light from darkness
mother and daughter
earth in its starkness
and that God which we barely perceive
that such strange dreams in a cold season render
from the minds deep flight
taken hold
in a song of the watery cold
and the rhythmic will
of the rooftop gutter draining
...such is the mind's deep dread
and the mind's deep peace
both afterward and before...
...a long life kissed by a cigarette
that burns like a pill
and memories all chaste with regret
as they turn the eye
toward the smoky sky
and its rain from a hill
and the loneliest song
of such a soul
as would surely repent
if it only could
while the distant sirens wail and shrill
with a love which feels like suicide
in a morning storm announcing
both peace and war
in days awash with a deep foreboding
much like blood!