daydreaming w/ Bob Arnold
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
Earth Day
We met like this, on this day
and our life's work together
maybe who knows has saved it,
together with so many others
whose persistence stays the worst,
the few who do what they can
is enough; the love they bear
for all the living and the faint
translucent vision of a future
filled with sharing, a future
with men no longer on the take,
filled with planetary kindness:
those hopeful few, those brave
persistent few, a tiny band
that may have saved us all.
One Day
Listen! It's all so ordinary
mostly nothing happens
quotidian they call it
then one day grey fox
grabs a rabbit so quick
right outside my window
I watch her take off with it
and then we all return
to that ordinary day
_____________________________
Clifford Burke
Being Didactic
Desert Rose Press
2025
Clifford Burke
George Kalamaras
Jeffery Beam
John Martone
Deer Creek
2022
Bill Bathurst, The Collected Poetry & Prose
edited by Bob Arnold
___________
Longhouse, 2022
________________________________
Time On My Hands
for Billie Holiday
As though abed in white satin
her wedding night with Prez
that never threatens dawn,
her voice from the Thirties
untouched by Death
the lone night through.
As though Lady,
filling in my silence
like Prez when her soul
caught its breath,
could ease me through the dark,
“I’m Pullin’ Through.”
As though that voice
would never trail off,
dawn never catch me,
like a shade flying up,
sandwiched between mirrors
taking a piss,
wide-eyed and hollow
cheeks needing a shave,
this image reflected &
diminished to a point
invisible with silence
she must have welcomed,
leather soles of police
on the waxen floor
of her hospital death room
heard inside her eyes
as gardenias of years gone by
crushed underfoot.
As though, then, this coda
could finally be left
unwritten: Sunday, lonely,
guest of a friend
gone to bed with his wife
pregnant again, restless
when I write this,
outside I’m spaced, the sun
at my armpit, encircled by
acres of broken land
flat as my prospects,
weeds & barbed wire running riot
like doubts in my head
make it hard to walk,
uncertain & shy, alone &
a long way from home.
20 August 1967
