CLIFF SAUNDERS - POEMS

Cliff Saunders has an MFA in Creative Writing from The University of Arizona. His poems have appeared recently in Serving House Journal, CURA, The Big Windows Review, Rumble Fish Quarterly, and Snow Jewel. Others are forthcoming in The Wayne Literary Review, Pinyon, West Trade Review, SurVision, and Wilderness House Literary Review. He lives in Myrtle Beach.

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TO MY DOPPELGANGER
​

​This may be hard to believe, but it’s true:
I want you to go skinny-dipping with me
through the canals of Burgundy.
 
How can you go wrong? I want you
to read my heart and pass me
a block of rubble, for I want a piece
 
of it to cry for. I bitterly regret
eating your costume of maple syrup.
At a loss for words, I look you in the eye
 
and back off slowly toward feathers
pasted on a sheet of art paper.
Can you hear me now? Can you tell me
 
how many Holy Grails are on the roof?
Do you hear what I hear—a fundamental
thrashing in a big pond? I mean,
 
you can’t find the sand, you bow meekly
to the dogs, to a brother, your hazy
car windshield remains defiant.
 
Suddenly, you prowl for leopard plants
on the short grass of April Fools’ Day.
You have questions, a part of you
 
confesses to being a bad liar,
the dark days are making you sorry
for not being romantic and ruthless.
 
I forgive you, man in a whirl.
You pace. You bang your head against
a close moon. You draw your own conclusions.
 

IF THIS POEM MAY BE SO BOLD
​

​If you love a blunt prose twice as much
as a kind heart, your body will become
the starry, starry ridge on a dark journey.
 
If you can pull it off, swing sticks of dynamite
over the edge of a part of hell.
The clichés will blow you away!
 
If you can, listen for a goddess following
a glass crow through slices of dune and marsh.
Thanks to her, stones sing about love.
 
If you are a little high, suck it up and go
paint the town green with an olive branch.
Chances are, you won’t be all that pleased.
 
If you hide your grandpa’s belt buckle
in the backyard, sooner or later
you will surely have to be punished.
 
If you are the blue-haired lady of healing,
can you help? A killing frost is descending
lightly on spring’s wet soil. The skeletons
 
are still not messing around, blocking culverts
and carrying bones to chew. When you’re old,
they think nothing of walking right over you.