SurVision Magazine
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An
international online magazine that
publishes Surrealist poetry
in English.
Issue Three
CLIFF SAUNDERS
Here's the Deal
Today
we're proud to behold
the apples of wise guys
and underdogs – luscious, chin-wiping.
We still have trees to fight!
We must walk down a rabbit hole
and beyond our nightmare
where white is the only paint allowed.
Through our eyes, all seasons end.
We watch another squishy day
catch cold, show signs of sickness.
What's the big deal – everywhere we look
lovers may be losing their skin.
We lie about it all: about tarps
falling on dance floors,
about truth on a safari in Kenya,
about playing karaoke crooner
on floating wind farms.
We've exhausted everything
except the roof that binds us
to its roots outside a tobacco barn.
We must live as kangaroos
wearing bibs with logos
and defying those ghosts
that never walk away.
Our souls need old promises,
but our hearts ruthlessly march on
through winter like embryonic ones
brought together by destiny, following
a divine night of song into the trees.
As winds rise, so do secrets.
Key to the Awakening
We head for technicolor pastures
where a few stray parakeets
multiply, where small snakes rise
from the ground like grass.
Through apple orchards
we keep watching
strange octopus love.
On edge at times, we need to bid
a fond farewell to a church
filled with cheap dates.
Our age of anxiety turns
too many stones into pluff mud.
In quiet creeks, we love to hear
snow changing to drizzle.
We all watch for battering winds –
gray, cool, fallish, playing
like kids in the fields. Blowing out
the candles of resistance, we want
to plant yellow flowers
in countertop tip cups,
but a comet's coming and to us
it's an awakening that shines
like ice droplets in a bush
after a loved one dies.
We better be ready to throw rocks
at the gates of night.
We can't sit silently by
while sleepy magicians
wander the bicycle paths
threatening catastrophe.
We simply cannot wait for
the sky to feed itself.
It's still with us as we head
into a year of silence,
when we touch the key
of a kind coach but do it gently.
the apples of wise guys
and underdogs – luscious, chin-wiping.
We still have trees to fight!
We must walk down a rabbit hole
and beyond our nightmare
where white is the only paint allowed.
Through our eyes, all seasons end.
We watch another squishy day
catch cold, show signs of sickness.
What's the big deal – everywhere we look
lovers may be losing their skin.
We lie about it all: about tarps
falling on dance floors,
about truth on a safari in Kenya,
about playing karaoke crooner
on floating wind farms.
We've exhausted everything
except the roof that binds us
to its roots outside a tobacco barn.
We must live as kangaroos
wearing bibs with logos
and defying those ghosts
that never walk away.
Our souls need old promises,
but our hearts ruthlessly march on
through winter like embryonic ones
brought together by destiny, following
a divine night of song into the trees.
As winds rise, so do secrets.
Key to the Awakening
We head for technicolor pastures
where a few stray parakeets
multiply, where small snakes rise
from the ground like grass.
Through apple orchards
we keep watching
strange octopus love.
On edge at times, we need to bid
a fond farewell to a church
filled with cheap dates.
Our age of anxiety turns
too many stones into pluff mud.
In quiet creeks, we love to hear
snow changing to drizzle.
We all watch for battering winds –
gray, cool, fallish, playing
like kids in the fields. Blowing out
the candles of resistance, we want
to plant yellow flowers
in countertop tip cups,
but a comet's coming and to us
it's an awakening that shines
like ice droplets in a bush
after a loved one dies.
We better be ready to throw rocks
at the gates of night.
We can't sit silently by
while sleepy magicians
wander the bicycle paths
threatening catastrophe.
We simply cannot wait for
the sky to feed itself.
It's still with us as we head
into a year of silence,
when we touch the key
of a kind coach but do it gently.
Cliff Saunders has an MFA in Creative Writing from The University of Arizona. 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.
