Sam Silva has published well over 150 poems in print magazines including, but not limited to Samisdat, The ECU Rebel, Sow's Ear, The American Muse, St. Andrews Review, Dog River Review, Third Lung Review, Main St. Rag, Charlotte Poetry Review, Parnasus...most (but not all) of these magazines are now defunct.
For the Past four years his magazine portfolio has grown by and large on line including Rio Del Arts, Megaera, Big Bridge, Views unplugged, Comrade Magazine, Ken Again and at least thirty others. Over the years four small presses have publsihed a total of nine chapbooks by Sam Silva ...these, being Third Lung Press, M.A.F. Press, Alpha Beat Press, Trouth Creek Press. Brown and Yale Universities solicited many of these chapbooks for their libraries. These chapbooks were well received in newspaper reviews by Shelby Stephenson, Ron Bayes, Steve Smith, and the late poet laureate of North Carolina Sam Ragan.
Silva has ebooks available without cost at Physikgarden.com, and Independantbook.com, and at two dollars
a piece at readsamsilva.com and well over 300 poems archived in online magazines. He was nominated a total of seven times by three small presses and has a full length collection of poetry called Eating and Drinking based on a royalties contract signed with Bright Spark Creative available for order at any online bookstore and has signed a second contract with Bright Spark's former senior partner, Mickey Hager, for a second full length book to be published soon.
Three spoken word CDs of Sam Silva's have been marketed through CDBaby.
WHAT THE COLD WEATHER COMES TO MEAN
A serenade of ice cold rain
...pitter patter doze of brain
in this, the warm room and afar
where snores forgo all sense of pain
and numbness is its golden gem
...such cloudy days!, yet, like a star.
The tortured minds of the insane
receive their due warmth from such cold
...a kiss that comes to cuddle them
should other luck have dimmed their eyes
where happenstance has made them old.
THE IMMIGRANTS
Abuela Rachel
feeds the mind such edibles
of insight
as enlighten the savor
of the senses
with the meal she's planned.
Delicate morsels
spiced picante
as is the wisdom in such pain
...such a strange commingling flavor
from a meal of hope
and the vegetables uncanned
on a colder day up north
bringing forth
in long life
Winter and its rain!
DON EDGI'S WEIGHT
Rhino muscle!
Pig fat!
The sacred weight he must employ!
A haunch that broke
the place he sat!
...a note
for this Latino boy
coughing up the crucifix
sniffling with angst and cold
...the weirdest monster in the world!
in dislocation where he sits
praying for the weight to go
and for life's journeys to pass on
till he is svelte content and old
with such a journey's lovely song....
EDGI THE GREAT UNKOWN
Never knowing where I go
toward tropic isles
or fields of snow
when summer's wind
the pasture blows
I joke with Edgi
...gray jokes too
...much like the cat who chews the weeds
to issue forth its greening spew
in context unjudged for its deeds
while armies blow the world apart.
Where evil elves lie down and choke
Why, Edgi is the dragon head,
the fleshy bread and crazy bloke
the fire mouth that flames the dead
...it's dead word broken from the start
with all profusely naughty art
as sparks and sputters humor
in the blue fire of the wicked fart
...cancerous and horrid gas
...this world of his!
...this lady in the green spandex
...this terrible and rotten ass!
where evil elves are laughing
as is tyrannosaurus rex.
Ah! What a thing it is and was
to joke with Edgi on the grass
...never knowing what is next!
