music made of words

this music limitless

made of words

body in park. facing screen 

IP address in the dark

could be Abilene

could be Lourdes

spirit in overdrive

knows no death

on a quest to uplift

any sorry soul's breath

and in so doing 

my own

#katyamills

radio music and the neuroplastic explosion

she would find herself involuntary humming. if only there was a sigil or neuroplastic explosive to pinpoint the spot on her brain where overplayed one hit wonders derived  #katyamills 

memory #141

smoking after heavy 

drinking. taste the bloody lip

thinking

up all night reading pacing writing

heart and mind playing

fighting

sprinkler system pushes up

out of the ground at dawn for the back 

track

#katyamills  

2 elation

the saddest day 

gave way 

when the cat came home

to elation

got off work early 

watched birds by binocular

tacos and coke

we made love

fell asleep to maurice ravel 

nine inch nails and 

the smiths

#katyamills

i died 4 music

cuttin and pinning wires
while you carve squares 

into the cabinet

the blade breaks clean
under your power
my lips in stereo thanking you

a star thrown
strikes me in the
chest

i died
4 the love of
music

#katyamills

0

writing verses

sleep. black liner circles

the eyes

the one who sings

cannot speak

everyone come to the center

soft body contact

the lyrics

the breath 

the hearts

the beat  

#katyamills

sun.shine

i was only 11 in 1984 we 

found freedom from our families

in graveyards at night trying tricks on 

our boards without wheels then

down the hill the days in town on wheels

the SMITHS blaring the radiant

sun out of the sky

#katyamills

i delight

a single cricket found his way into my home and hides on the vine. i delight in his courage to make music in this strange and dangerous land 

expiration date. sadness

one day you woke up feeling lighter. this was different. this was hope. it made no sense and could not be denied. the following day it was gone. the light was shining and the birds were singing but all you saw and heard was dead again.

still what stood out for you now was the recollection of yesterday's hope. wanting another taste of that.

so you got out of bed a little earlier. you saw the slightest smile at the edges of your lips in the mirror. you were able to sing some morose song by the Cure in your head.

- Katya Mills, 2019

city and her music of noise

was america was
chicago was life worth
working for ina cross
road. you and me and any one
fought through the seasons
the vocals the
exhaust
the steam of whistling
industry
i could feel the touch
the warmth beneath your voice
in a cold world
you could shout you could scream
you would have to
to be heard
then the aftermath the streets
the faces ina diner
ina hard won heartfelt
part of town

mocha skin tones made by
sun and genes
cream and sugar and
coffee black
where noise is music
toasting broken hearts and
dishes and bottles

 you woke me up

i can feel you today thousands
of miles away

i can laugh
i can cry ona dime ina city
and the music of
noise

i was and wasn't
there

- Katya Mills

de.celebrated

Most rock stars walk the memory back to the days when every concert was hard pressed and hard won, when they knew personally every groupie and went afterpartying with the club, fresh cuts on their lips. When gigs were dive bars, audiences unpredictable if not hostile, and pay came in the form of an open tab. When a station wagon full of amps needed a jump. The simple luxuries on the road. A bitter loaf of bread and one night stand. A pan full of eggs and bacon. Walls dressed in hard wood. The percolating coffee pot to ringing ears. Crazy laughter after what just happened? Most rock stars dream of such beginnings. Through the gold-plated bars of today's high hung song bird cage. Awash in stale hits. Buried in mountains of paperwork. Studying the tax codes. Dining with divorce lawyers. Oh, how a dream can turn back on itself. 

wip. coda

this morning i was not feeling well but i got up just the same and chose tea instead of coffee to steam in a cup beside me while i wrote. i worked on the epilogue. i am reframing it: coda. i also changed the prologue to prelude. i did not simply choose these words because they are sweeter to the tongue. i chose them because i do see my novels, holistically, as musical compositions. they have rhythms and beats, high and low pitches, hooks and repetitions and refrains

un.music

The diet oversaturated in music, I reduced  my consumption substantially. Finding inner rhythms. Now there is a symphony looking for the back of my teeth, guided by the light in between so many keys. I only hope it makes it out.

sorry division

the old sound was nothing like the new sound, and the new sound nothing like that which would replace it, but when the music was at its level best, well, you could tell the old lived inside the new,  a candle cased in glass, where all the moths gathered, and world reflections wide came to a collective point, we became one again you and me, before the flame flickered and the wick succumbed, gave way to the sorry division.

real unreal by katya

another loss -i

You let me stay one night in your room, many years ago,  i was in between places and spaces and a kick in the gut had landed me in Oakland with nowhere to go. Brown-outs were my life back then, and nobody can tell you what your psychosis is gonna look like or how it will feel, because they aren't buried behind your eyes. Electronic Dance Music was one thing we had in common that night, and we had what was left of my battered laptop to trade tracks that touched us...

telekat #2017 songs

precipice

There he was, alone in the room. There was the light and him and the dust and the sound of the keys striking, and the strings being struck all alone in the room, and more than a sensation an emotion joined them, he and the light and the keys making chords, the emotion barely registered on his face and one could catch it at the upturned edge of an eyelash, and only for a fraction of a second. Balancing there. Causing the edge to collapse. He promised himself he would not think upon her again. It was not safe.

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

possibly a song

Here are the lyrics to a song I am workin on (to be accompanied by my acoustic guitar which I have been neglecting terribly, poor thang)...

"Remember when you thought everything was going well and then it was not, when winter was too cold and summer too hot, another cup of coffee would pull ya through and it did, raised you up like a pup by the lids... some day you gonna be a railroad tie, no one gonna fuck with this guy, some day you can be railroad grade, swimming ona sea of marmalade... some day you gonna be a railroad tie, no one gonna fuck with this guy... some day you can be railroad grade, swimming ona sea of marmalade..."

so i saw somethin last night, like a vision, right
 i had to let go of the past and move on. now.
so i am

have a wonderful fabulous fantastic effortless lighthearted brilliant day everyone
love and light

KatYa

legendary. local and non-locally

The local legends are legendary, and so are you, too, full of codes and dotted lines, signing with the strangest of signs. The runners got confused and ran backwards cross the bases and back into the dugouts which could only be uncarved and replanted in the earth as trees, encircled by swaths of honeycomb and bees, and it was like a land before time that progress took away. We walked to a local show to see your friend,  an old man wide in the eyes and young in the heart, clear in the mind playing the blues what with a small silver briefcase full of blues harps behind him and walks with a cane. All the while I was hoping to reach my potential (but not really trying) when I locked the keys in the car again and had to fuck all and get a coat hanger. We manipulated everything wonderfully, you and me. You won't remember the guy sittin on a bench between here and there, looked pretty bad and hadn't been chosen in a while by anything but a park and a bench outta place. In the distance (in the memories) a local legend was picking the blues and won't be around for long. I wanna be a local legend some day, too. For now I am non-local and legendary, but only to you.

They call the losses progress, and write them rhythmically in the ledgers -as gains- to the sound of lawn sprinklers, and get away with triumphant bank accounts which open doors to high rooms vaulting into blue skies behind glass. You think you would but you wouldn't want to be there. It's cold and light. And the light is cold, too. I promise the world is easier to take when less experienced. The barriers between us breathable. Someone is wicking away my moisture and I'm not too happy about it, I coulda sold it high on the water mark exists below the levée, some day. You meanwhile are being yourself and doing what you do, working really hard, sharing it with someone and yourself. They wick it away and charge our credit cards. I never cried so hard as the sweat lodge losses. Congratulations on reaching your (earnings) potential, America. I wanna say I'm proud of you, but you see I am way below mine on purpose. I guess I like to suffer zero balances, every once in a while feels like I'm alive in a capitalist plot reserved for us over here.