life before cars

i remember you years back. funny and loud
silence didn’t stand a chance

they expanded the freeway

now i cannot hear the birds
like they planned it

ten lanes now
the whole family out

bowling. an icy can of orange and two

tone shoes. big shiny ball ona slow roll

i got you in my head again. when you left

it was life before cars



#katyamills

good & effin gone

the apartment was messy

we liked it

spilled coffee beans everywhere

leave em

ain’t got time

gotta move along

apply the foundation hold

steady at the mirror

heels hit the wedge

bangles ringing while you’re singing

some good effin morning

song

open the door wide take in the world

spin around a few times

stamp the ground and knock

you under the chin step

on the gas hit the freeway feelin

good and effin

gone!

the apartment was messy and that's the way we liked it. we spilled coffee beans everywhere and did not gather them up. what you gonna put those beans under the sink and rinse them? nah. we ain't got time. gotta move along. push fingers through hair. pull boots up until the heel hits the sole. open the door wide and take in the world out there waiting. it's no different than jumping into a pool! to step into earth's atmosphere and spin around a few times, click your heels and knock you under the chin. step on the gas and hit the freeway.

prefab ona freeway

I was driving up the grapevine out of los angeles when traffic came to a dead stop, near the top. we were all clocking about 80 miles an hour before it turned into a parking lot. ahead of me was a prefab house tipped off a truck bed on the freeway.  i wanted to stop and give the poor trucker the down on his lucker, a hug. he likely lost his job today. maybe they will let him move his family into the new lot he created. rent should be nothing if he sets it up for some tolls, his kids can take turns in the booth making change. governor jerry brown can stop in for dinner once a month and his cut. sure they will have to soundproof the walls and string up some blinking lights. no back yard and no neighbors and the air quality will suffer from the constant emissions. none of it will be legal but they'll be roping so much cash they can buy the courts off. the only great obstacle will be the haunting. the ghost of the family who once lived where the freeway now runs had something to do with this, for sure, a spiritual reclamation of material space. a frontier family gone west and staked a claim long ago. only to be ousted by the D.O.T. commission lobbied hard by big business. no more day hikes to pyramid lake. no more immaculate alta vistas. just a small payoff and a bus to LA, and a new life sucking fumes in carson city. the patriarch promised vengeance. he was the one, long long forgotten, who jumped the trucker's nerves and caused him to jack knife that day. the matriarch got ahold of his wife. you can see the translucence deep into the night when you drive up there and wait for your toll. the kids are all demons possessed.