True North and Untrue You
Sam Pereira has published six books, the most recent ones being Bad Angels (Nine Mile Press, 2015), Dusting on Sunday (Tebot Bach, 2012), and The Marriage of the Portuguese—Expanded Edition (Tagus Press/University of Massachusetts, 2012). He received his BA from California State University, Fresno, and received his MFA from the University of Iowa Writers’ Workshop. After teaching for twenty-one years, he retired in 2019 and now lives a quiet life of joy sans desperation, with his wife, Susan, and a gifted, former street dog named Marley in the Central San Joaquin Valley of California.
Praise for True North and Untrue You:
Sam Pereira is a luminous poet. In True North and Untrue You the reader navigates through a myriad of themes filled with stunning imagery, piercing wit and profound emotions. A truly sublime lyricism that engages, surprises and liberates. A collection of radiant poems that bite and uplift. —Diniz Borges, director of the Portuguese Beyond Borders Institute at California State University, Fresno
There is a dazzling sardonic brilliance to Sam Pereira’s superb new collection, True North and Untrue You, as well as something uniquely American in his voice, as if Lenny Bruce had written songs with Tom Waits, all of it graced by the angels of film noir and the cool of Miles Davis. These at times disquieting yet tender and consoling poems are an embodiment of a compelling and new American noir poetry, one that in its cultural nuances can speak wisely to our current historical moment. This is a truly remarkable book for our times.—David St. John, author of The Last Troubadour: New and Selected Poems
Sample of the poems
When the Government Lands in Laredo
A good cowboy song, yes,
And a follow-up of horse shit
Lying there on the streets
Of Laredo. That's my story.
Nothing more. If you’re looking
For the president, who is not
My president, he's the one
With his finger on these joint
Sessions of criminal madness.
You might wonder how he does it,
Wearing his clown suit of hair
And bad ties, until you hear him
Whispering to a woman
Who could be his daughter,
As she passes by the outdoor stage
At just the correct moment,
“I have the greatest bad ties.”
Then, a short middle finger
To her and the world she buys
Her ice cream truck ice cream in.
He unashamedly howls
That he loves Laredo. He loves
Ice cream, and the shit that rests
In the middle of these ancient streets.
He’s been joshin’ with us
Since he got here. He loves
Saying the word joshin’.
It gives him street cred in Texas.
He loves it as much as he loves you.
Certain Things
A person remembers
Certain things, important things,
Like buying a black leather jacket,
And instantly thinking
You looked like James Dean
Just before stepping into a Porsche.
There was that time you offered
Your father a copy of your first book,
And he, having never considered
The likelihood of your being
A man of words in a culture
Of regret until that moment,
Suddenly, and without warning,
Smiled. He’d been afraid for you,
Thinking you would end up
On the corner, just you and those words,
Along with a cheap red wine.
He was closer than he might
Have ever imagined, but
He smiled, and shook his old head
Instead. Finally,
There was your mother,
Who’d always been content
To stand alone in the background,
Preparing a beautiful dinner,
Like the one she did
For you and your girl.
She presented a carved roast,
And some fine red potatoes,
Like you had mentioned
Once in your work, she said.
Then your mother smiled,
Like your father had done before,
When he was alive and looking
At what he’d been given, its fine paper.
One could always tell the quality
Of the writing by its paper.
You remembered every tone
In his delivery. Your mother
Smiled at the woman you’d brought
To the house for dinner,
The one you were going to marry.
Everyone explains it this way,
If you ask people nicely
On a warm afternoon in the valley:
The notorious beauty of smiles
Is always reflected in their tears.
Elegy for the Roses
—for John J. Pereira
The smell of death and candles
Is all I remember today; that
And the fact the priest
Who was from Malta,
Kept telling everyone “Look
At the calmness in his face.”
All I saw was the coldness
Of your dark forehead
When I bent to kiss it;
The pale light that came
From underneath your eyelids.
You made me dig weeds
And cut the lawn; water
Those damned roses
In the summer, in the heat.
Your favorites were the red ones;
Wondrous and beautiful,
Like the woman from Texas
Who said yes in 1948,
And gave you me in 1949.
You laughed when my fingers
Bled from the thorns; another
Gift that, now, as old
As you were when you died,
I appreciate. You watched,
As I tasted my own blood,
Blood as red as the Chrysler Imperial
That bloomed every year
On the side of the house. I swore
I would never deal with nature
Again, when I got older, never
Break out in hives from the allergies
That cutting lawn brought on.
I was wrong. I’m grateful.
I miss having to disagree with you
At the table about watering times,
About the Vietnam war,
And about why the comics
You thought funny, I thought
Disastrously dull, about as funny
As the smile the damned priest
Insisted was on your face
In death. Goodbye, Father.
I’m going to tell my students now
How good you were; how flawed;
How important. I have, so far,
Mastered flawed. I’ll show this
To my wife tonight, the one
You never got to know. I’ll show
This to my dog. Your crazy son,
The poet misses you sometimes.
In the middle of the day,
Your crazy son smiles at the music
You left him. Father, the music.
The music smells like roses.
13:11, Elizabeth Reed, Fillmore East ‘71
I suppose it’s a generational thing,
But no guitar has ever sounded
So sweet. In the middle
Of a quiet wood, what can I say?
The South will dance again?
Probably not ever. Probably,
When the final cloud rushes
The old highways, and the ghosts
Of my ancestors once removed
Take snuff and clear liquids
Into the dawn; when
A cigar-toting politician
In a white suit, caressing
A watch fob, smiles
At a long-legged young girl
In short jeans, perhaps then
Another guitar can take over
And make young men think
They are hearing violins again.