Cliff Saunders: COLONIZING THE WORLD • Cleaver Magazine

Cliff Saunders
COLONIZING THE WORLD

The walking stick:
an unlikely mast
a bit long-in-the-tooth.

ii.

Good news:
red doors beckon
from the North Pole.
They’re out there,
and so very conflicted.

iii.

Frozen in time:
the dark freeway
where nature checks
its pretty head for gypsy moths.
What happens when
there is a reckless leap?

iv.

Go ahead, say it:
loyalty is dirt
—meantime, tomatoes are rotting.

It’s official:
dementia is brewing
in the railing spindles.

vi.

True story:
dreams go to die
where mountains mingle
with the sky.
Bitterly they mourn
the cold, hard cliffs they climb.

vii.

Go figure:
ice frustrates the grieving.

viii.

It bears repeating:
cocooning continues
in the hands of principals
despite bouts of loneliness.
It’s happening way too often.

ix.

Look it up:
cages cry during
hushed conversations of astronauts.

Think about it:
a dark December day
has telltale crumbs on its bones.
It hurts to watch
the wind blow
through a novelist’s eyes.
There’s something about paper
that never even sees
the fissure widen.

Cliff Saunders has been writing and publishing poems for more than forty years. He is the author of several chapbooks, including Mapping the Asphalt Meadows (Slipstream Publications) and This Candescent World (Runaway Spoon Press). His poems have appeared recently in Serving House Journal, Five 2 One, The Big Windows Review, Rumble Fish Quarterly, and Snow Jewel. He lives in Myrtle Beach, where he works as a freelance writer.