Four and a half billion years before my eyes.
It’s in the cracks of the sidewalk,
Aggregate filled with foraminifera,
Skeletons from the bottom of the
Western Interior Seaway.
The competition between the chittering grays and dispossessed reds at the park.
The hermaphroditic Barramundi fish.
The Taraxacum Officinal clinging to the black walnut tree in my backyard.
My arthritic shoulders from one hundred thousand hours of guitar playing,
Just a slender drop in the great sea of human physicality,
Which itself is a drop of quanta, a data point in the inky darkness of the universe,
A pale blue dot in the purifying radiance of one hundred billion suns.
It’s in the vaccines,
The cancer drugs.
The opiates that trigger dopamine receptors in your brain.
It’s in Progeria.
It’s in spina bifida.
It’s in cystic fibrosis.
It’s in the MCADD of My dear little one, look it up.
It’s not a myth.
It’s not a fable.
It’s not a fairytale.
It’s not literature.
It’s not The Greatest Story Ever Told, although it certainly is the greatest story ever told.
It’s rich.
It’s mind bending.
It demands my attention
Because it doesn’t care If I consider the evidence or not.
It never stops.
The Earth abides and waits
While we breathe 
And read
And talk
And eat
And fuck
And freak out
And laugh
And celebrate victories
And swallow the bitter tears of disappointment
And raise children
And grow old And stumble into dotage
And wither.  
It permeates my being and yours
So subtle and all encompassing
Both wave and particle
Presumed,
Ignored,
Spurned,
Disregarded.  
How marvelous it is to behold.

Your warmth is overwhelming, 
a wool blanket on June solstice,
yet the time has come to cast 
you off, my hazy memory of 
a dream that never was nor 
could be. 

You’re a scenario I should’ve
forgotten four, five, six years 
prior but let permeate wishes
and daydreams because my 
soul rests in a human body,
in imperfection. 

But for the path that unfurls, 
for my future in all senses of 
the word, I disentangle you 
from the worlds in the novels 
and my head, the ideas I had 
of you, the thoughts. 

Right now, I see 
            your eyes when the sun’s 
light renders an environment
a dimension of glittering jewels;
            your hair in dozens of strangers, 
the inky curls and platinum dye, 
the soft brown and braid of flames, 
the dark onyx and white wisps;
            your embrace scattered amid foliage, 
vines curling around buildings, 
stems intertwining to create crowns, 
to populate sprawling city meadows, 
colorful wildflowers circling graves; 
            and your words inside any motif,
blue skies replacing rotting ceilings,
fish sluggishly, surely pushing forward, 
a lone dragon stretching its wings, scales 
glinting not like a cursed, enigmatic fiend’s, 
but like obsidian and night, like nature. 

Yet one fateful day, I know that 
your face, recalled, will be a blur, 
your name the title of a melody 
half-buried, your quirks swept 
under a flood of new experiences, 
your mark’s depth undone. 

Though you eroded my senses 
like water, so too can the liquid 
cleanse my being of your grip, 
so too can it strongarm sediment 
to fill the spaces you left, so too 
can it start the tale anew.

 Hazard coal field resources are the best in the country.  

Taxes collected from the sale of liquor for April $2,249.897  

Blue Grass Fair begins Labor Day.  

Riots mark May Day around the world.  

Lexington to Louisville interurban trolley commences January 1, 1920.  

Kentucky has one third of the high schools it needs.  

House Judiciary Committee fears politicizing liquor.  

Prior to the war, liquor tax was $1.10 per gallon, now it is $6.40 a gallon.  

A single seam of coal in eastern Kentucky spreads across 8,000 acres.  

Lexington to Louisville round trip $.1.95 to see the Colonels v. Columbus baseball game.  

Miss Sally Bright, 421 South Mill Street, received a card from her brother – assumed dead.

Say it with Flowers, Michler Bros. Co., 417 East Maxwell     Phone 1419-Y  

Senator Underwood of Alabama blocks women’s suffrage.  

5 lb. pail of peanut butter $1.25  

May 24: Petrograd has risen against the reds.  

Ohio goes dry; wetcenters hosted farewells.   

All troops except regular start home July 12.  

Tell people what the League of Nations means; discussions have been too vague.  

Good bread at before-the-war prices: Downing Bakery Company     115 North Broadway  

5,000 strong cabbage plants, 1,000 for $5: Keller Florist     327 West Main     Phone: 354  

Strayed: from 148 North Hanover:  2 horse mules, reward: phone 3326-X  

School teachers’ salaries are a disgrace.  

1,100 to 1,200 pupils expected in the fall at the University of Kentucky.   

15,000 people in Kentucky died from the Spanish flu.  

A man may produce a barrell of beer for home, but a photo of the keg on his watch fob is advertising and will constitute a crime.  

Marshmallow crème kpint jar 30¢ /Van Camp’s Soups, all kinds, 10¢ a can   

Male Help Wanted: 500 colored laborers and miners with their families: U. S. Employment Office  

Buy Liberty Bonds!  

Dinner party for 30 Saturday at the Country Club organized by the younger social set.

Embroidered poplin dress skirt $3.98/Pink batiste chimese, lace trimmed 98¢  

Land: $5.40 and acre in Fayette County  

Female Help Wanted: Stenographer, Franklin Motor Car Company     276 East Main  

Doors close as June 30 nears, 97 saloons, 6 dealers, 7 wholesalers, and 6 breweries.

Women’s shoes $4 to $5: Finney’s Shoe Store     119 North Mill Street  

City, state, and national governments set to lose immense revenue from Prohibition.  

List: Black silk umbrella, silver handle; left on South Limestone car. Return to Herald.
Leader  

Massive unemployment predicted with Prohibition, over 100 business vacancies.  

9 million gallons of whiskey stored in the 7th Congressional District: Bonded warehouses to be locked and barred.  

Holding breath as June 30 nears.    

Notes:

-One word or two remains in contention to this day: Bluegrass vs. Blue Grass.   

– “Say it with flowers” was taken verbatim from a Michler’s newspaper advertisement in May, 1919. The slogan and Michler’s have been around for over 100 years.   

-“Timing is everything,” and the U.S. Congress missed the mark. On November 18, 1918, a week after Armistice, Congress passed a temporary Wartime Prohibition Act prohibiting the sale of beverages containing more than 1.28% alcohol. Originally, the act was intended to save grain for the war effort. Wartime Prohibition, which was passed when there was no longer a war, took effect June 30, 1919. Juy 1, 1919 was known as “The Thirsty-First.”  

– Point of reference: If you know where the Subway restaurant is on Main Street in downtown Lexington, then you know where Hanover Street is located. This is where the two horse mules “strayed.”  

– “Car” in the context of the lost umbrella means trolley car.

The windows wouldn’t roll up today,

On the school bus,

In the rain.

It was a day to remember,

At least they’ll say.

Backs were wet ,

and blue turned grey.

A deep stain memory

With a price to pay.

Their subtle souls

And soaked shirts

Hug to them

Like the memory will for decades.

tired 

*until the paycheck clears 

Like a goose trapped under a car
because the car didn’t stop for it
and instead seemed to speed up—
like that, but what is it that’s like that?
It’s like we’re all vehicle, no tenor.
All vehicle, no tenderness. Even so,
the goose manages to waddle away
as onlookers’ mouths, stretched
to empty eggs, deflate—not hatch,
no, nothing is born here, like this.

Waves drop and roll on Terran coasts
Brazil, Hawaii, Baja, Tobago
any beach broadly known
or kept close to the nose  

Easy green palm seashores
beige sand stamped with
ROY-G-BIV umbrellas
for a league, maybe more
a tie-dye mosaic of swimsuits and skin
Breathe it in  

wading out into Neptune’s royal blue 
straddling their surf boards
patiently they wait
the steady 4/4 tempo beat of waves
wind-given
to glide the crest
arms outstretched
stay stable, stay calm in all that crashing joy
immerse in azure unscathed
by turquoise sea horses
foaming white at the mouth      

sometimes thrown
pushed pulled plunged
into aqua gravity
alone but amongst friends  

The surfer becomes submarine
a body in paddling synch  
in a slow stride
A dolphin beginning to breach  
and reaching for their dashed board  
tethered to them by a playful cord
they breathe, bob happily in between
all that glides beneath
and whichever wave comes next

They run shops
like captains at sea,
yet can’t understand
numbers of a sidewall.

“Give me the cheapest,” they demand.
An expensive 10-ply is required.
Not caring, they repeat their desire.
Weight means nothing,
until something snaps.

Specs are mere whispers
in a storm of pride.
Load ranges? Alphabet confusion.
Tread depth? Proof they failed math.

They float on confidence,
anchored to nothing.
As I hold the line—
voice calm,
hands bruised
from lifting truth
they refuse to carry.

Yet, even in their fog,
a light flickers:
a question asked sincerely,
a thank-you without sarcasm.

It’s then I remember—
I’m not just selling rubber.
I’m sowing trust
on roads they’ll never thank me for.

As we emerge from hallways,
the rain raps down like judgment.
Sirens sweep us through bluegrass
milestones, leave us hovering

so deep in the museum.
Near a small wooden stage front,
hands ache to play and applaud.