When fields rime to stillness
and the towns of the slaughtered
lie vacant of angels,
from the defilement of nature
dropping from black heaven,
the dear ravens descend in appetite.
They are a harsh uncanny army
crying the north winds
above yellowed rivers,
over the roads that have led
to new Calvarys, armored
in sleek black feathers.
The trees are emptied of warblers
and the only songs are these
from carrion crows.
For those of us at the bottom
of this new food chain,
defeat without a future.
Where the dead sleep,
the ravens resurrect their voices
in screeds of hunger and avarice.
I crouch beneath their yellow eyes
and bow my head below
this funeral of birds.
(after Rimbaud “ Les corbeaux“
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DAVID ANTHONY SAM
Born in Pennsylvania, David Anthony Sam has written poetry for over 40 years. He lives now in Virginia with his wife and life partner, Linda, and in 2017 retired as president of Germanna Community College. Sam has four collections and was the featured poet in the Spring 2016 issue of The Hurricane Review and the Winter 2017 issue of Light: A Journal of Photography and Poetry. His poetry has appeared in over 70 journals and publications. Sam’s chapbook Finite to Fail: Poems after Dickinson was the 2016 Grand Prize winner of GFT Press Chapbook Contest and his collection All Night over Bones received an Honorable Mention for the 2016 Homebound Poetry Prize. In 2017, he began serving as Poetry Editor for GFT. www.davidanthonysam.com
Twitter: @dasam
In 2017, his poems were accepted by 50 Haikus; Aji Magazine; Allegro Poetry Magazine; Burningword Literary Journal; Chantwood Magazine; The Deadly Writers Patrol; Dual Coast Magazine; Foliate Oak Literary Magazine; Fredericksburg Literary and Art Review; GFT Press One in Four; Glass: A Journal of Poetry; Gravel: A Literary Journal; Heron Tree; The Hungry Chimera; Into the Void Magazine; Inwood Indiana; Literature Today; The Muse: An International Journal of Poetry; The Mystic Blue Review; Piedmont Virginian Magazine; Poetry Quarterly; The Ravens Perch; Red Earth Review; The Sea Letter; Smoky Blue Literary and Arts Magazine; Summerset Review; Temenos Journal; Three Line Poetry; Two Cities Review; The Voices Project; The Wayfarer; and The Write Place at the Write Time.