morningside park

tugging on a lamppost 

atop a flight of stairs

by a blade they lost

they strength

waylaid

not without a fight

began to fade

between the teeth the skin

the beat it slows 

to fin and many full 

with sorrow

hearts

#katyamills

beat.18

 found the belly 

of a lonely world i

found the heart inside

the belly of a cold

old world i

found the blood hot

rushing. all the girls were

gushing i 

found the beat it

was my 

own

#katyamills

7am and the city picks up

The colombian brews up in all the moms. all the pops. all the scragey wooden boxes with names carved and burnt in the pantries. dried blood years old stains the wood darker than darkness. the damn kids who work these floors, button the old cash reggie buttons, deal with constant cobwebs cause its a sin to kill spiders here. ask the old man if you got questions. (you dont wanna ask the old man nothing!) 

The colombian drips its black molasses over yellow white teeths of the mashing local masses. every fuckin morning, y’all! 5am scrubbin the floors for 6am skillets firin for 630am stand tall for the regular steppin into the hall. between old sacks of basic shit and new ones. potatoes, flour, sugar, whatever the fuck! by the basics. buy american. fit in if ya can. dont and deserve what you got comin’. (maybe a big mouth of colloquial jam). 

Ya. its cruel out there. its real though, its really real. guess what? you gotta deal! we got clocks run outta time…hands groping for the light, time wont stop motherfucking moving. the toxins ull purify her, the river of the street. 

Was hard to even downtempo out of the colloquial expressed here and there and afore. hard to shut the door on it. the artist rendition was poor, sadly drawn out, she was bad at drawin’ it. Maybe it was the fifth bombay, no more tonic. just gonna water her down, said the poorly conceived logic of this dirty down home skinny ripped jean locally loved chick. drunk and every guy became a prick. drunk but not yet sick. get ready she’ll rip your heart out only to take a generous lick of your ticker, get the old bitch to quicker tick. that cool kinda hip synonymous with sick! Thats madre mad maddy. know her name, laddy. know her name if you know anythin at all!

 On the streets the homeless, friendless of course the gps locates maddy on a skid row corner at high noon working chore in glass cylinder. mad addicted sometimes! episodic! got shown up, really most of the days, all of the nights, mad madre she believed she was showing up, we believed, for someone to believe in, yes it was her. she inspired faith. goddess touched. maybe the eighth.

Well she saw us through lines endless before city agency doors. This citys dropouts would fill floors and floors. Then the lines saw mad maddy…this time shown up by metrosexual bluetooth blackberry boygirls blown up. Yup. Sorry to say, they took her stained glass away. Poor maddy, sad saddy. But she dont care, they can just stare, her world continues to spin, spin spun, the tales, the fun, anything we had not done she had us do, we had it done.

If only we had her still,  #8 child of light we say, cause if only would save lives. Pick up the streets, its a washout! Madre back in our lives, in our faces. Poverty of spirit, she erases. There by the federal building so many cops out in force, passive in their aggression, of course. Within seconds bust some dealer long overdue on the corner where the Hondurans claim territory. The Hondurans (that’s another story). 

Yet all is not so clean, not so neat. Be afraid. Mothers flick cc’s. Houses raided, feel the heat. Children learn street science early, sisters they wept — they weep! Fathers look real strong or tried during shoots, for local papers. Later tied off and overdid it and died off. Uncut hit the street again like it does, like it did, like it always will, once in a while. 

Some just got along but truly hated, felt hate incoming, vented hate outgoing. Others no showed or showed and were hated. Doors were gated, communities walled off. Still others loved madly behind these walls. Madre herself got back there and fell in love with a junkie, sadly, became half-mad of her original madness, got numbed small by suffering and sadness. Only for a while, dont worry. Madre maddy is radical, shes fucking savvy. She knows how to dodge a bullet, a boyfriend fronting steel rims before weak game. Ill be the one rolling out on steel, maddy assured herself. Like bigger-than-life madre by little children, painting half their nails while they slept, they would sincerely miss the kind of presence and house she kept. He would make bitch his mantra. No telling how many times. Predictable, mundane, hiding behind the pain. 

Collect all the tears that you can, if you will. Please. So to offer toward healing of hearts. We need them! Remember all this shit happens for a reason, whether painful insane. We cannot measure it by days necessarily, but if we work together there may still be a chance. Maybe the sun made it possible?  while the wind blew right by. while the tide got influenced. Got forced.

You stood by my side. By choice, not by force. Colombian brewed all night. By itself i think? We have locked and loaded the coffee grind so long it has come into its own natural rhythm, brews itself and a goddamn good cup at that! Working overtime all night, maybe could use the human touch again. Observe. Experience the texture — more like molasses or jellyfish extension to half your energy, sapped and unaware, might find yourself sitting half of every day, watching mindless TV foreplay on black grounds of roasted earth. 

Whole is not too much, rounded out, no doubt. Maddy madre reappears, realigns us from our fears. Fast! she races to one tree (up on hill). If you dont blink twice, you might see her through the window sill. What a goddamn gorgeous pole dancer, drop dead hot for romance. Culturally felt, honored, unified melt. Down her strong soft thighs a true natural tone she set so clear so dear so fresh young thrill! never marked for the kill. Too swift, mad maddy. savor (the flavor of murder). take a picture. you cannot capture her all of her. you must anyway, with your trademark call out. Hold it now, hold still, thatta girl…

 To you we are devoted. 7am in the city.

KatYa

steal this poem

i dare you

to steal this poem

take it

eat it

digest it

cut it

copy it

confabulate it

feed it to your pets

fabricate it

press it

throw it against the wall

stomp on it

send it into space

toss it into the ocean

play with it

talk to it

recreate it

its yours

 

people work better when driven (insane) – iii)

No, don’t be scared. Just pay attention, brush your hair out your eyes. We can get you that haircut we have been waiting to get you, I mean, for you to get. Ummm… I promise, things will be better this way. This is life! Hold the tv. I know it sounds strange. Listen to your heartbeat for a minute… see? It’s different this way. Everything changes. You are not who you thought you were. You have been touched! Listen… see what I mean? The arrythmia, stupid! It’s going away. You can’t tell? That’s just because you’re still waking up. Come on, we can urge it on with some of that new spangled electroshock. It’s gotten real popular. I think you can download it on your phone. Just have to agree to the terms. You don’t have to read them, silly. Just touch your touchscreen. Swype the bitch. Come on, now. Twenty-first century? Ding-dong! Twinkies are coming back. They didn’t go nowhere. (Just waited for folks to miss them enough. Like the professional athletes. Come on out of retirement again. Peek-a-boo! We miss you). Okay okay, no, now wait let me finish downloading it, too, because like anything good, it requires a little bit of teamwork. No loners! Groupspeak is in fashion. Spit shine collective. May seem weird at first, but doesn’t everything? Let the relativity kick in, and weird becomes normal. Shit, you gotta know what i mean. Isn’t that how you attracted all your friends. Okay, so now take your android and bump it with my android, and boom! FEEL IT?!? It works off the same principle as static electricity, they say. Google it, if you want. Its won some emmies. Or grammies. Or google playmaker awards. Whatever, man, just do it. Whatever you want to think. All i know is this beats a triple shot machiatto blended irish carbomb, anyday. Feel it? Here take this gravity brush. Your hair is standing up. Won’t do for the interview. Anyway, welcome to the clear full of light. You heard me. The clear full of light. Oh, ya, I said YOUR INTERVIEW. What? Did you think I came by to hangout? See, that’s your problem. You have made up stuff to define stuff to make a life out of nonsense. That’s so fucking GenX, man, what are you looking to do next? Pull the trigger through your toejam? Jesus. You don’t need to reinvent Catcher in the Rye. All the good creative shit, the dreamer shit? Its been dreamed! Its been done. Move your ass out of Pere-LaChaise and back into the real world. Time to get PRODUCTIVE. Fuck the age of aquarius! I don’t care when you were born. The only sign you’re gonna see, is the sign you pencilled in and hung around your neck before you wandered onto Market Street with a deathwish and a papercup! I know it sounds harsh. I know. But listen, No more repititions. Stop asking me why I dragged you out of bed and out here with me into this frigid fucking morning. You think I like it? This is a one time deal for you. No repetition. Think of the bottom line. The BOTTOM LINE. If all was repetition, there would be no bottom line. Like that famous number. Hash tag. Pi. Whatever. 3.141414 to infinity, dumbass.

Sorry, I know i’m being critical, but i am keeping it real for you. Real is not always nice. Dummy. Hey, it’s not like i don’t tell myself the same in the morning in the mirror. With my gravity brush. Three i-shocks to the wind. But guess what? At the end of the day, I can say: at the beginning of the day, all the way to the end of the day, I am one driven dude. DRIVEN. MOTIVATED. The only way to be. No impediment. No speed lumps, bumps, undulations, or tables going on here. Not anymore. Not like you. I fuckin’ outsourced a wrecking crew, man! Reshaped my image. Airbrushed my waterlogged fuckin decaying attitude, man! Photoshopped the noise out. Pulled the pillow up off my suffocated orifice. My heart murmur. One more analogy and we’re all through. But atleast I got my point across. This ain’t no backbeat boyz. This is the original tom-tom thundrous wonderbread of the regimented swing shift disciples. Yes, its a gang. In the best sense of the word. A gang of motivated, resume padded, headhunted, cubicled, well paid soldiers of fortune. The Dr Whos-Who of timestamp travel efficiency. Clocking in and out the central artery. Parking our asses irreverently in the very middle of the street. Pretenders, Talking Heads. Wall Street. Whatever. We take our shots through farmers market produce. Please and thank you very much. Long the long stretch of endless paper pushing. Short the short life of rigorous dreaming. You not only need to walk the walk, you also need to talk the talk. Stop trying so hard to assert your individualism. That’s just some raggedy-ass abstract for a special order. Well, I got news for you. The world is leaning McDonalds over Burger King. And you will have it like everyone else gets it. No special treatment. Remember the bottom line! We can’t fuck up the bottom line, if we have a prayer’s chance in atheism of competing with China.

Life! hold the tv. You’re the one! You’re the one who signed up. So what if it was after the last dollar was spent at the dollar store, and the recruiters glistened in the parking lot tarfill? So what if tv. hold the life. Held out the promise of the driven? Anything to sign you out of that funk and back on the railroad. Don’t be scared. Look alive! What you need is something altogether different — what you need is this. A haircut. A bigger box. A mentor. An outfit. And a permit to enter your own kitchen, soldier. Because you know you’re mouth has been watering for some time for a little of this.Hello! Knock knock? Who is it? Reality! Corporate world. Business class. Identical non pinstripe suits. Ladies, no open-toed shoes. Life is not a beach. Gentleman, no windsor knots in those ties. This isn’t England. We don’t have time for that shit. Every second off the timestamp is deducted from your paycheck. Ok? Let’s get into the mentality here. It’s a simple kinda program, a simple way of life. Leave your dreams at home. Put your unpublished novels in the shredder. There’s no glory in your personal story of desecrated ennui. You owe yourself and your country some restitution for all that rest. Bipolar? Autistic? Schizoaffective? Come one, come all! Let us coach you out your self-actualized mental illnesses. You wanna work like that? Like what? Work your way into a straight jacketed institution? Work your will away at some fanciful creative endeavor? Please. You just need some motivation, son. Let us know you better than you know yourself. We know how you tick, we have studied homo sapiens and cognitive behaviors for the better part of our wonderful miserable lives within cubicles. Heroes! That’s what we call ourselves. Because heroes are real!

Wake up, sunshine! Heroes are real. They don’t need to dream. They’re out saving the world, not cracking nuts in some blue diamond almond factory down the street in the day. Not throwing paint chips at some glue-dipped armchair and passing it off for high art at some oakland first friday telegraph avenue meet bourbon street doused in whiskeytown rotgut penniless parade! All the drunken prairie dogs. Come up off their skateboards to see some lost vision. High art my ass! Bottle bands and road flares lit up for applause. Kids hooked on ropes, bouncing off buildings. Calling it dance? There’s solid proof of wasted time and effort squeezing dreams dry. No, I’m not angry. No, no, i’m not jealous! Can I continue, I was working up to something good, I think…And all the teenage angsters and the oakland gangsters having their out of body experiences over that fucking couch sprayed with paint chips, yelling Hey! Look! A masterpiece! What does that almond farm factory sweatshop sucker call this thing? Barber Shop? Barber shop! I get it. No way! Dude, your girlfriend looks so dope passed out on that thing. Her ass hangin’ out. Loveseat for one. Maybe she’ll get a haircut. Hey, man! Someone give that bitch a haircut! This is Oakland. This is the East Bay. This is experiential learning.