Dear Editor

Please note the attached poems, “Man in the Moon" The Great Journey" "Broken Man" and "It Always Fades Away"

Here is my 3P bio: Sam Campbell's work has appeared in Full of Cro Quarterly and Blinking Cursor Literary Magazine. He is a creative writing student at Concordia University St. Paul and continues to grow and learn as a writer and a musician.

Thank you for your consideration,

Sam Campbell



Man in the Moon

I walked along the big lake as it whispered hush.

Sparkling reflected eyes spat tears

And as they hit my shoulder my mind crawled to his face.


How lonely is the man in the moon?
He looks down on us.
He sees our mistakes,
and can’t do a damn thing about it.

No one has hugged him.
No one has kissed him.
No one has even tried to learn his name.

How far apart are the points on his crescent moon?
Too far apart for me.
I wouldn’t be able to sing to its furthest point



The Great Journey


The traveler in me says follow the pull.

The pull is this force, this powerful force that feels like God on the horizon holding a magnet that’s attracting my belt buckle.

I see ladies, beautiful ladies.

The kind of ladies that you don’t just turn your head for, you clutch your chest because your soul was sucked out of your body and followed the angel that just walked past you on the street corner.

Before you can even picture her face again in your mind your head has already whipped around and your feet have started to scream at you to stop and introduce yourself to your future wife.


But reevaluate the situation, feet, soul, head.

She isn’t following your pull.

Do I risk it?

Do I want to ignore the horizon?

No, my mind is focused on my travel—my travel in life, my travel in mind, my travel in experience.

It’s not that I’m narrow minded, but rather cynical.

There’s a great opportunity to be had and people walk the other way.

Those are not the folks that I am going to have distract me.

How about the ones that say my adventure yesterday was so moving that I will doing again the next day, regardless of how putrid it is.

These folks follow this force, this pull.

They see something they want and take it.



Take it now.

It won’t always be there.

Well, it will, but will you always see it?

If I lost its sight I’d simply light my cigar and wait to die.



Broken Man

Have you had the feeling of a being’s soul scratching your legs?

Begging you to come back in?

Their fingernails clawing your into your calves so you can’t move?

It’s a feeling that stays with you no matter how badly you try to shake it.

It makes hair stand up on the back of your neck,

As you feel the moment their heart literally breaks.

Call me a pioneer, but I have traveled this cold path thrice before.

Every time, the harder it gets.

My nightmare gets worse when I realize I am not in a dream.

In between their gasps for air I can feel the tears hit the floor.

The floor is where I look so I don’t see the eyes of the being that I am forever branding.

I am branding them with the feeling that they will remember for the rest of their lives.

I think about them feeling what I have laid upon them.

I look for forgiveness, but I am shunned by each and every one of them.

I make Judas look sincere enough to trust.

I didn’t learn.

I didn’t learn not to do it again and again and again and again.

I want to stop, but I can’t.

I find myself in this position all too much.

Are you having fun God?

Do you like to play with my head?

I say I don’t believe in you, but I want to.

I want to know that it is you who is making me do this.

Although, the more I think about that I laugh.

I laugh because I know it’s only me.

It’s my fault.

I’m to blame.

I want to love, but I feel that there is an inevitability of me killing another connection.

I can’t force myself to be different.

I tell people I have changed, but you know, they know, and I know that maybe I am just better off living by myself.

At least I can’t my break my own heart.

Actually, I take that back, coming to this sad realization.



I just did.



It Always Fades Away



Why do dreams dare to die,

leaving me with a foul taste?

I arise to the harsh sun

and the start of another trek.



I am not alone, but I might as well be.

My dreams bring me to a safer place.

And bring me to her without the awkwardness

of sweaty palms, and a trembling voice.



I need not to impress her.

I am to cool for that and she clings to me for it.

I am a confident man

and she is my trusted companion.



This all fades as morning comes.

It shows up in a tragic fashion.

As the deep kisses were just getting good,

and the weight of my stress was rolling off my shoulders.



So I tend to my day

looking forward to my slumber.

It is hard meeting her for the first time

again and again only when I am out of consciousness.