the Japanese restaurant

the warmth the cheer
of the Japanese restaurant
receded. the night swallowing us
multi-colored mochi melting
in our bellies

broken glass 

reflected another's misfortune

how is it you walk in the shadows? 

you ask 

because. 

no demons lurk here 

it's a myth

#katyamills

checkout girl

you fold my dress you turn

a phrase

unearth a deeper calm 

behind a morose 

gaze

#katyamills

go gentle into waking

with terrifying promise 

fall's early darkness 

raised mushrooms and flowers black

alongside creatures

conceived by lifeless

ground. needless of the sun

indomitable

#katyamills

ten ten

nights lengthen 

the shadows thick and tangible

possess now those who owned them

some vitality ascends 

pulp of squash and pumpkin

arrows of geese piercing ponds

covered with scum

hope may our alliances strengthen

and lengthen too

otherwise we are 

doomed

#katyamills

autumn like a junky

autumn

once the sweetest season 

now full of fire and smoke

like a junky once was

the sweetest boy 

now full of piss

and vinegar

#katyamills

i saw i was

i saw i could not see you i 

was the wishing i could explain i 

was the urge to be right i saw 

the key. i was the let down in your eyes 

i saw the first day of fall

#katyamills

fall.20

fall like a charred

 anthem our throats

coated with smoke

Sacramento

a city on all sides

surrounded by fire

from a distance

the prayer

subsequently

the sea

#katyamills

19.85

rising in elevation 

through pine forest

deep into fall and a brushing

of snow

few words between us we 

cut up some wood

built a fire 

the shadows jumping

the walls give the room life 

tell me a story i 

don't care if it's true we

make it all up 

as we go

#katyamills

autumn thank god

who knows what would have happened and it's autumn thank god the summer has broken and we held it together so well

far past when holding it together was cool

cats black

your voices and my voices met in the middle under a bright cat black

moments like these

4am
full moon
           fall

remembering
how my past was
made of moments

            just
        like
      these

fall.2

fall touches the sun spun side of the earth. and permeates. gets into everything. even your smile.

fall

fall rises in the system. hot coffee becomes special. essential. we need each other more to keep warm.

like the day I was born

Outside the sky is a canvas and all our forms are drawn against it. the leaves this time of year make everything timeless like the day I was born.

an easy recycling of a difficult time

They landed carelessly on the bench and caught up. A duck waddled past them and floated itself in the pond. The lamps were beginning to respond to dusk, and passerbys grabbed their coats around them to keep warm. Not a second went by where a leaf would not take flight and spiral to the ground, and the path was crunchy underfoot. They drank tea from paper cups and decided how they might make use of the night. There was a rooftop to situate themselves with a lesser known vantage of the skyline, west by northwest. They could hang their legs over the ledge and let worries fall away. They had known one another for years, yet it never felt stale; sometimes united, other times more divisive. The lights on the skyline got blurry with tears, still beautiful in an abstract sorta way, the shattering and scattering of every straight line. An easy recycling of a difficult time.

ghost story

i had gone to the back of the room and left them telling their stories one by one with seldom an interruption. the voices gave warmth to a cool autumn morning while the delta breeze slid soundlessly across the train tracks and the torn upholstery of abandoned cars to the branches of the trees tapping on the glass all around us to get in.

i poured myself a mug of hot coffee and stirred in a bit of sugar, standing there with my back to them, listening half-heartedly and somewhere between consciousness and last night's dream.

after a few hearty slugs of the black stuff my eyes woke up first and stared into a congregation of uneven framed black and white portraits from times before now. century old tired and long faces looked back at me and over my shoulder as if they were part of our gathering in this old meeting
hall, a former nondescript bar once with billiards for the truck drivers and laborers in the yards.

i felt a chill carry over the nape of my neck as i realized i had become some medium some conduit between my audience hung by nails alongside coffee mugs on the wall, and the living boisterous
true fellowship behind us. i stood perfectly still then

turned to see the speaker at the head of the table, an older gentleman with a way about him and expressions i would not forget to remember him by. as i turned slowly back my eyes getting larger to see, alighted on an old rusted peg, the visage of the living man! he was silent yearning to be free, framed right there before me... and in small white numerals in the corner of the photograph... i read in disbelief the year! it was 1923.

swallowed

Some kinda store. Little Bit took off as much as she could chew. What was her purpose so to do. The red book back was broken and quite mostly paper-maiche. In look, not essence. Essentially a book and no longer readable. Tragic, were it not for the hope of recyclables. Postconsumer waste repurposed, like even after she got through mashin' the shit out of it, too! Who? Little Bit, pumpkin shopping in September, true true.

faux froid

La Verite was nowhere to be found. Faux Froid took over the town. A chill cast over the roads - trees - dirt - homes - faces - ankles - toes. Toenails soft as reflections bent around the way, only to be bent back around. Compensation had long ago -- long long ago, you know -- fled the sapling exchange-post.

who fell (this fall) in love?

k the self. 2016. october

cloud for sale. sinks in the middle

what with all was going on i began to think the world a dark place i could not find any light for seconds of every day not minutes just seconds not hours just seconds and me i was not sleeping well i had a boyfriend and the mattress i bought off the internet was supposed to float us on a cloud but if a cloud sinks in the middle well i did not know but this one does and what with all was going on in the world i began to think it a very very dark place and even the music i streamed into the audiowaves could hardly make me feel less insecure about our world our dark world our dark obvious future and then well the cloud it sunk in the middle the perfect cloud sunk me into my boyfriends arms and my insomnia went on and on in the dark and my boyfriend he got up and got dressed and left and left me there lying in the middle of a sinking cloud yes floating miserably so in the dark and cruel world you know but when i awoke and raised my head and got out of bed what with my bed what with my bed head and crawled up and out on the edge of this dark cloud and hit those goddam lights right and they were ecologically sound and bright white or not so and soft warm like the way i like them like old school kinda uneconomical old fashioned bulbs from way back when maybe the nineties remember then? and when i got up and fixed my bed head then said fuck it and put a hat over it all and looked me in the mirror and laughed and got my instant coffee made in the shade into my big silver bullet of a thermos in a cold and dark cruel world shattered by old yellow light from the eighties well... got my self to my insecure job ten miles away tryin not to do the old california rolling stops at the stop signs on the back roads dark and uneasy and unstable like sometimes but the highway and the stoplights led me to an open road below a very open and energetic sky for there yes there just above me and my politically disinclined am radio listening loser of an october preceding elections and what was it that blew the dark cold cruel world away but that gorgeous full wonderfully years of light brought forth like an opening in the sky for us harvest moon