Jim Burke: Lives in Limerick, Ireland, and is Co-founder with John Liddy of The Stony Thursday Book. His poems have appeared in the Shamrock Haiku Journal, the Literary Bohemian, the Crannog Poetry Journal, the Stony Thursday Book, the Revival Poetry Journal, the Shot Glass Journal and the Live Encounters Online Magazine. He is a member of The Irish Haiku Society and is on the committee of the Limerick Writers Centre. Some of his haiku are featured in the anthology 'Between the Leaves' edited by Anatoly Kudryavitsky.

Jim Burke

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The Present

He said, history
and the present
belong only to you.

We watched him
swipe a tea-towel
at the breakfast table

shoot
out the back door
into the yard.

They are out there
now,
his fluffy ears

filling up her lap.
She is rubbing him.
Hugging him.

Kissing him.
I guess
Bukowski was right.