there’s blood in my shoe (haiku)
there’s blood in my shoe.
i never notice the pain
until it is done.
her mothers bruised face broke the azaelas but the mirror of her mother
was the way she moved her hands
all fingers when you were born her mother had said
as she grew old each passing the girl knew her mother’s hands well–
watched them age spotted and bulbous veins lumping the edge
of knuckle she smoothed the blue lips down with her fingers pressed them
deep thinking the smoothing-of-them would help her (mother) live longer
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.
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
