Library of America
daydreaming w/ Bob Arnold
Angel
When I was almost a woman
the men in the radio
called someone I thought
might be me
an angel and a baby.
I wasn't offended.
What did I know?
I knew I would have to
empty myself to fit inside
the songs. And I wanted
to be in them as long as
they lived, to be called to
and never come. To be full of
my lighter and lighter self,
with literally no place to go
as it is in heaven
Between
"The,"
we say,
making
our claim
on eternity.
"The"
short gray
sidewalk between
those shaved strips
of lawn
_____________________
Rae Armantrout
Go Figure
Wesleyan University Press, 2024
C L I F F O R D B U R K E
1942- 30 June 2026
A friend to many in the small press world ~
captain of the seas with his Cranium Press
since the 1960s and long association with
Desert Rose Press while in New Mexico,
Hollow Orange was Clifford's literary journal
to keep.
Photo by Andrea Grimes
Wild Apples
with 'bow-arrow tang'
cows or birds or Johnny Appleseed
planted
New England westward
Whole orchards, boughs knotted
with fruits of coral & gold — to be eaten, Thoreau believed,
in the wind.
Whose 'bloom' rubs off in pockets
like wild horses
broken in, harnessed
to plow.
Neither orchards of the east, in lichened
walls, or west
hedged in eucalyptus—
bounded only by slopes of oak
& of maple,
the woods-apple comes sweet from the hills, both spring
nights & autumn
a wildflower sharpness, an earthy
cider
Domestics
shape
for hand,
& tint
of 'apple
color'
—but wild may brindle
as a cow,
may rust like
rock
____________________________
Valley of the
Many-Colored Grasses
The Song Cave, 2023