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About Sam Silva

Sam Silva has published over 150 poems in print magazines, including Sow's Ear, The ECU Rebel, Pembroke Magazine, Samisdat, St. Andrew's Review, Charlotte Poetry Review, Main Street Rag and others. Has published at least 300 poems in online journals including Jack Magazine, Comrades, Megaera, Poetry Super Highway, physik garden, Ken again, -30-, Fairfield Review, Foliate Oak, and dozens of others. He is a frequent contributor to Empty Mirror.

His chapbooks have been published by three small presses, and his work has been nominated for a Pushcart Prize seven times. Bright Spark Creative of Wilimington published his first full-length book, EATING AND DRINKING.

He now has many books and chapbooks available at lulu.comsamsilva54 and as books available at Amazon. His spoken word poetry is available at the major digital markets such as Apple iTunes. Follow him on Twitter @samsilva1954.

Sam Silva releases new chapbooks

Empty Mirror News and Sam Silva

sam silva poetry chapbooks

Prolific poet Sam Silva has published several new chapbooks this year. They are all available on Amazon and include: Two Chapbooks for Winter (print / Kindle) Someone's Minor Apocalypse … [Read more...]

Opium Tales at the End and two more poems by Sam Silva

Sam Silva

Opium Tales at the End - Sam Silva poetry

Narco Trips and Stasis Ugly men not mean as a rule but stunted and demented full of strange patterns that their dreams journey on at night ...some nights, though, are sleepless ...they mutter … [Read more...]

Blue Heart Jazz: Paintings by Rachel Davis and Poems by Sam Silva

Rachel Davis and Sam Silva

Blue Heart Jazz (detail) by Rachel Davis

MIDNIGHT CALLS A POEM Midnight calls a poem for empty prayers or empty praise and now I am alone in the shell of the dark after that bored terror of the days ...and soon I will be a bird, … [Read more...]

Prayers Made Out of Christmas: Poems

Sam Silva

Sam Silva - Prayers Made out of Christmas

PRAYERS MADE OUT OF CHRISTMAS Bach fugues and silence! That organ within my mind exhales the snapped note toward darkness ...and outside the days lean and wait for snow or drizzle to … [Read more...]

An Old Near Abandoned Kitchen: Poems

Sam Silva

Gordon Skagit Indian Corn - image: D. Enck

AN OLD NEAR ABANDONED KITCHEN In that crypt where dead thoughts are stashed these classical notes wander my brain and peel off the scents of musty numb and muted pain born of the music of the … [Read more...]

A Different Inspiration: Poems

Sam Silva

Blue Plateau. Image credit: Denise Enck

A Different Inspiration Flashes of epileptic light induce the brains of the spiritually dead to turn their thoughts from blood-drunk Hades and the muddy rivers of their sleep ...and to inch … [Read more...]

Carolina Ends in Deep August: Poems

Sam Silva

Crown Point -- by D. Enck

CAROLINA ENDS IN DEEP AUGUST Friends!, how the heat of this day has worn me ...this long eternal summer extended as if without hint of sunset. And the light outside forces retreat toward … [Read more...]

Where We Got Our Cool: Poems

Sam Silva

Love Wall

WHERE WE GOT OUR COOL Jazz within the sky ...gold upon this purple swamp ...this bebop swank of lullaby where angels sell their poetry for that treasure of a girl's sweet thigh thrust … [Read more...]

Computer Classical Radio: Four poems

Sam Silva

succulent / credit: de

COMPUTER CLASSICAL RADIO Alluvial!...floatation of notes in a river of sound where fingers somewhere dance on a keyboard Nature! Nature! in a watery sight ..in the brain ...in the … [Read more...]

A Stranger’s Education in the Arts: Poems

Sam Silva

Whatcom Falls Park, March 23 2015

A STRANGER'S EDUCATION IN THE ARTS A brain with its echoes finds constancy in classical romantic serenade and a mirror in the later centuries' leap into expressionism dancing close to … [Read more...]

4 spring poems

Sam Silva

Scudder Pond in Early Spring - Denise Enck

Ache Awakening In a moment where the yard explodes in air about infested with sky blue expanse in twigs straining to bud near left over winter mud and cars rip by in dense exhaust ...mirrored … [Read more...]

Five poems by Sam Silva

Sam Silva

Minimum Pink - Denise Enck

MUSICAL STILL LIFE WITH COMPUTER Guitar serenade ...the plucked harp of my soul lingers as well in the cave I made of my heart with its hole echoing through computer wires with their … [Read more...]

A Song Which the Artist Inspires: Poems

Sam Silva

Street Flowers by Alexis Doyen

A SONG WHICH THE ARTIST INSPIRES Angel of my thoughts and dreams! Painter of my dusty soul in earthen portrait. Fire around the darkened coal lit alive by such desire. Love like this comes … [Read more...]

The Light Within the Darkness and two more poems

Sam Silva

Poems by Sam Silva

The Light Within the Darkness Chagall's celebrant Russian folklore foreshadowed somehow the deeper sadder island serenity of your dazzling palms which radiate tears and your portraits of tiny … [Read more...]

Four poems by Sam Silva

Sam Silva

WHEN THE POET SEES These facts appear like magic! Those abstract birds you made with wild paint on a tropical canvass seem to my failing eyes now a nocturne where such colors still keep … [Read more...]

In a Time Under Morning’s Spell: Poems

Sam Silva

Skagit Farm by Denise Enck

NATURE Darkness or a flickering computer light within are usually a good shield from mental marauders when the fruit is peeled to the fruit's cold core. And the world is molten ash with a … [Read more...]

7 new poems by Sam Silva

Sam Silva

MY FRIENDS AND I, WE STOLE THE SUMMER My friends and I, we stole the summer and its rain in stumbling secret conversation about the brilliant ways of the city ...all of its joy and all of … [Read more...]

What the Lower Mind Discerns

Sam Silva

Computer music from within ...matched in its expressive rhythm by the rattling tin! One of the coolest days in July helps the feelings on toward Autumn's endless sky and leaf and breeze come … [Read more...]

Pagan Days

Sam Silva

poem by Sam Silva

Prayers are face down and descend in stoic gloom ...what goes up is methane and all of the other various fume and gas which punctuate a tired pain made of a planets sheer exhaust while … [Read more...]

Histories of a Small Southern Town / What Happens With Our Greed

Sam Silva

Poems by Sam Silva

HISTORIES OF A SMALL SOUTHERN TOWN Like those young and ardent tragedies which surround ...summer will come and burn with its fury about this small city built on a swamp. It will come and the … [Read more...]

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Empty Mirror

Established in 2000 and edited by Denise Enck, Empty Mirror is an online literary magazine that publishes new work each Friday.

Each week EM features several poems each by one or two poets; reviews; critical essays; visual art; and personal essays.

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