Green Apple

San Francisco

foraging for books with my best friend

and boba

they do not barter with local authors so

i paid cash for Terminal Boredom by Suzuki 

left a signed copy of my latest on a bus stop bench 

Clement Street

#katyamills

made up

laced up our finest boots

eyelashes bold 

made up real fierce we

rolled out with our knapsacks

to the independent 

bookstore  

#katyamills

Journal # 03.20.15

I confess I hate T.S. Eliot for 'the Wasteland' . Now maybe the authorities will arrest me and throw me in jail with my stale jaundiced copy of Catcher In The Rye and my fuck you attitude toward the literary intelligentsia from the owner of city lights on down. I will not have my voice dismissed by a small faction of ivy-wrapped literature class tenure-burdened, ass pale from kisses, Madames and Misses. No way. Yes, Amazon is a jungle and a corporate monster with baby robots shuffling fulfillment orders through warehouses the size of Leichtenstein . But it was also founded as an online bookstore out of the garage of a man named Bezos in Bellevue, Washington. In 1996, a time when corporate bookstores had already begun mercilessly destroying the unique landscape of mom and pops in cities all across America. Now those corporate bookstores are getting their karma by Amazon putting them out of business. You can buy a book for a lot less money on Amazon. Of course, no one will ever come to consensus agreement on anything. Authors complain the price points on their books have been obliterated. Well, so what. I am an author and have gotten used to not making a living, writing. Still, I know I have a chance, just continuing to place quality product out there in the jungle. Because there are lots of kids with e-readers looking for something worth reading. I was in Chicago in 1996 when Amazon was still called 'cadabra.com' in its infancy. I lived in an apartment on top of a tiny bookstore owned and run by a holdout and alcoholic. He had inherited the business from his father, and was still pushing hardcovers out on the sidewalk every morning and talking to anyone and me about literature. Those days are mostly gone, though any good American city still has its holdouts and used booksellers. They might be a little worn for wear and even hard to talk to, what with the bitterness comes of draining an abscess. Still, I find it a joy to go in there and tell them I hate the fucking Wasteland and watch their eyes turn red on me. We can always come back in the end to smiles, in our mutual admiration society of  our beloved Catchers In the Rye.

how to fall in love

go for a walk
any day any time and let yourself
into a used
           book
store

smell the stale and fresh pulp
of so many
pages

smile at the book
keep

discover the underlying
organization and find your place
in it

stand tall
loitering is encouraged
here

take one finger up
with your eyes
and across the broken
backs
         of wellworn
dated issue.
     horizontal
stacks

then when you find
the loving one

tap the top of her binding
and pull her out on her
heels

let her fall into
your hand

carry her weight in your
mind over her looks and hold her
lightly now

remember
you are not the first
to know her

and you may not
be
the last

study her face, check out her
behind

if she's suffered the hundred
creases, well... then you know they
fight wars in her name

 stop. close the eyes
and breathe

then take another look
 uncover her
discover her
open your heart to her

let her font be fashionable
easy on
the eyes

if you are still
 into her

begin to get to know her
one word at a
time to answer questions in
the mind

and you will know
by sound of sudden footfalls
behind and around
you

by disorientation
of time. by shifting of shadow
through light

by resurgence of voices
she drowned

upset by
someone dares
speak to you

you will know
by the adrenaline that surges
through you with the pulp freshly
hewn across the ages

by the way she has found
you and reached you now
you hold her unable to let anyone else
in the fuckin' place have
her!

charmed straight
to page one cause it would be
a sin to read anymore
ahead

careless of the
price

you're in love