Before a hope arrives
open-eyed and childlike,
he is turned away
with a backward glance
at a lost country.
As unwelcome guest,
he is given the hospitality
of poisonous visions
chasing a dream
that burns in ancient fire.
He prays for the mirage
of devotion
to plague him again–
but has salt for dinner
and dry water to drink.
Delusions are towers
that he has survived
when headlines arrived
or email censored its way
through death and war.
From his exile, he
watches his ancient land
plead the whiteness
of bleached bones
against a holy vacant sky.
The sun on his face
dreams a lover.
He can only sleep for moments
as he reconciles despair
with fading sips of hope.
David Anthony Sam has four collections and was the featured poet in the Spring 2016 issue of The Hurricane Review. His poetry has appeared in over 60 journals and publications and his chapbook, Finite to Fail: Poems after Dickinson, was the 2016 Grand Prize winner of GFT Press Chapbook Contest. In 2016, his poems were accepted by 50 Haikus; Aji Magazine; Arlington Literary Journal; December magazine; Dual Coast Magazine; Folia; GFT Press: Gravel; Heart & Mind Zine; Heron Tree; Hurricane Review; Inwood Indiana Magazine; Jazz Cigarette; Light: A Journal of Photography and Poetry; Literature Today; Meat for Tea: The Valley Review; Poetry Quarterly; Red Earth Review; Red Savina Review; Route 7 Review; Rust + Moth; Shabda Press; Smoky Blue Literary and Arts Magazine; The Summerset Review; Tanka Journal; Touch: The Journal of Healing; Three Line Poetry; The Write Place at the Write Time; The Yellow Chair Review.
