the w(h)ip

Dead of winter
starry night
Fearful cold
bluish light

i find myself alone
again

after dinner thin
mint the charleston
a dance

i listen
watching you

see how you falter
fumbling at the altar

locked up inside
alone again

all whatever fabric
falls off

you listen
watching me

just enough time
to wave
goodbye

something quite amazing
will happen when

we leave
the body
behind

see . saw

Some deity of prepossession took hold in America, leaving little room for argument and debate. Lady liberty gripped her torch so tight her hand began to crumble and her arm fissured and fell off, her torch falling into Hudson Bay where water met fire with the strangest sound. Water won and the western world was a little darker, hard to see. The thinker felt the ripple in time and stood up against his master's orders. Millions of women marched and the men, well, they also serve who stand and wait. Behind bulletproof glass and whitewashed timber, the purposeful and power-laden drew back the drapes and saw only panhandlers, holding signs and begging for change.

"dry my eyes"

"I want to tell Freddy what happened, I want him to know but where to start? No worries cuz it’s the same Freddy all of the time, letting stuff roll off his back, layin there looking at me and the boy, the patience of a dark planet waiting for light years to arrive, and I tried but at first the words wouldn’t come, Gaptooth quiet sittin between my legs counting my toes with his fingers, when my eyes betray me and well up with tears, and I fall into Freddy and he holds me until the heavy feelin thumbs on outta there like a hitchhiker walking down the margin of a single lane highway disappearin into the Sierras, leavin me with a lighter heart. Gaptooth reaches up with his shirt tail to dry my eyes."            - Book 3. w.i.p

(re)cognition(s)

i thought all over you, i am sorry, i mean no harm, all my memories playin across your body and face like runny egg-white shadows and you don't know what to do, so politely ensconced listenin to me go on and on about stuff we forgot purposefully long ago -- OH -- the damage i might do on accident, for me you would do anything, for you i would do anything, making something of you you are not, here with our cutoff gloves playing fingertipsies, blind to the sign language we are groping -- THE -- cognition is not fully lubricated, does not cover the entire street and buildings and sky and short bursts of nature in the medians, i guess in this ragtag mind i got, driftin here, pausing over there -- BY -- the cracks in the roads whereby loiters and got no business to be, trance music, clubs, dancing, you and me, why can i not hold up on our benevolency -- PLEASE -- i mean no recognitions, move along little thoughts, fly away, move along, there are interior spaces up in northern provinces, Canada and the like, which need fulfilling -- SPACES -- we will bundle ourselves up and head out into icy quiet not-threatening ones,  warmth of coffee and small talk, overtures of what we may be if we simply let ourselves trudge forward and go

in a fashion of caring

These days I see people in a sacred space who are tragically depressed, like they can hardly get themselves out of the house and make it to session. I see people who are in abusive relationships and sometimes with themselves. I see myself seeing people and I don't know how to help. All the stuff they taught me not always on the ready. What ends up happening is I help create the sacred space in which I see them, and we meet there, and I invite them there again, and I'm not always making any money cuz I volunteer, too, so I may be tired and permanently jetlagged by my nightshift, and I'm sure they see me tired and tryin to pay close attention cuz I care, and hopefully, just hopefully, they will realize they are worth caring for and start to care for themselves a little more, too, but even if they don't, well that's okay, too.

stop torturing us

Don't let anyone ever tell you
torture helps

Let them hang themselves by their toes for several hours and see how that's working for them. let them immerse themselves in exceedingly high decibel environments then isolate themselves in sensory deprivation. see if they come out of that advocating how torture works. do not let anyone convince you that hurting someone make us safer. incapacitating someone ensures our freedoms. bombing some city to hell is the hallmark of an awakened cultural consciousness?

 Come on, now
 stop torturing us

the plot. ecstatic

A while back i was wearin a floral print shirt i bought with a gift card leftover from the holidays, and found myself perspiring through another busy day, what with the excitement of life in this little city, and my sweat comingled with the pattern, the print from the inside out, and the material began to stick to my skin. i tried to tug it away from time to time, whilst talking to people about their problems, then had to take my coffee break early, smiling as i excused myself, when to my dismay i found the print had firmly rooted itself into me, and my upper body was one big floral tattoo, a colorful garden up and down my arms and fingers, across my shoulders and breasts, around to encompass my back replete! i quickly made my way, unacosted, out a side door to exit the building, and running home from there i had many uninvited acknowledgments and gang signs flashed my way by passerbys, all in the breathless spirit of the life of ink, and finally i got over myself by a chain link fence a few blocks from where i lived. as i caught my breath in a lean i saw the clouds open up to the sun, and closed my eyes to feel the sudden warmth spread over me and fill me with a feeling i have never before known, a sorta ecstatic love! last thing i remember i was leanin more deeply into the chain link, which was giving into the weight of me, the side of my face and body getting waffled, one eye fixed within a quadrant of link. i opened it to see within, a community garden with plots for anyone who cares. i always wanted a plot of my own, beside pumpkins, green pepper and garlic. now i kinda sorta do! i seem to reside there, and they tend to me, watering and cutting me back every so often. i don't mind my rectangular confines, so long as sun can reach me and provide the ecstatic love, here where the plot thickens, in the heart of midtown, i have lost interest in anything else.

Grand Theft Life 1.7

page 100 and the twisted sister

Here is page 100 of Maze, I just got a lovely scanning application on my phone so I scanned my actual award-winning book for your reading pleasure, page 100. Meanwhile I wanted you to know I am locked in with the twisted sister, the next book which I hope will blow everyone away with its extravagance and dark beauty. Haha. I have relocated Kell several times in the narrative, she keeps ending up in strange places and I finally got her out in the fresh air, and she is hitting the streets of Oakland hard and finding her fresh psychic powers. 

Here's the link to the book if you like what you read and want to read some more. Thank you for supporting indie authors! MAZE THE BOOK

Book Review

Requiem for a Dream by Hubert Selby Jr.
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Selby Jr. follows four characters as they descend into the madness of addiction, in new york city, a journey the author knows well, having become addicted to morphine when he was suffering from tuberculosis as a merchant marine (and years later, heroin, which he recovered from in the late sixties). Harry and Tyrone are buddies caught in the lifestyle, embracing it at first, copping and selling dope, kicking back to enjoy the high, dreaming of some impossible free-wheeling wealth and luxury on top of some zion of dope... forced to face the danger in the streets, inevitable mishaps and kicking in the joint. Marion is Harry's girlfriend, a wannabe artist who likes a small habit which grows and grows, only to push away all her old life's ambitions and interests. The love affair is mostly content to stay in the confines of their apartment, saddled by the sad business of easing back, high and dreaming, making plans to open an café together, nodding and sleeping, happy plans in the head... then falling on hard times looking for money and drugs to fix. May have to get creative about it. Don't expect a picnic, here, if you read Last Exit To Brooklyn (or saw the movie), you know this is a cautionary tale and all of it's out in the open. I just love how Selby Jr.'s run-on prose moves freely in and out of headspace and lands like a kick in the gut between personalities. And how the characters seem to get over on themselves. Sarah is Harry's mom and lives alone and dreams into the television and wants to be the lovely picture she once cut, to fit in that old red dress, and fancies she might lose some weight and make it in television. She starts on diet pills and goes mostly downhill from there. As flawed and impossibly dreaming as these characters are, the book was a page turner because I was not simply ambulance chasing, no, I really gave a hot damn about all 4 players and hoped against hope that they might figure themselves out and find a way out of hell and back to some decency and love and happiness. You never know. Addiction isn't always a life sentence.


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china. usa. bodhi

If china and the usa can meet for tea
 in the south china sea
what a dream this
    would be

then will i know my chinese brother
who wears the knitted hat
like me

given us by our nephews
to keep warm
in the mountains

in the valleys
in the winter

a dream is only worth
making real. like the two silver hearts
i wear around my neck
on a silver chain

as my sister. in china
given us by our young nieces
replacing our hearts
from their scattered
pieces across the world

jasmine tea
in the south china sea
you and me

i give you my cup
you give me yours
and fire up our ceramics
 against any twitter
polemics

arms locked at the elbows
we drink slowly

drink up. you and me
from the sunset west
looking east where she
shall rise again

red. blue and white
in the south china
sea

lighting the single candle
given us by an elder. in faith

by the bodhi
tree

deep space. 10

in our world of small attention spans
i promise you life improves by exploration
hold on and follow the field of focus
past a point of routine

find the curiosity
rewarded by
deep space
ten

trespass. in a storm

There was a storm last night. The wind and rain assaulted the trees and many limbs were lost. A palm frond fell on my head as I was leaving my apartment and I forgot my name and yours. I broke into a car with keys I found in my pocket, to find shelter from falling stars. They tend to be much bigger and more dangerous in person. I noticed a warm light stretching out from an apartment in an adjacent building, so I opened the gate and entered the yard and walked cautiously up the stairs, which were littered with stardust, the skin of trees and wet leaves. I knocked on the open door and called into the light. Nobody came. That's when I felt the tickle on my neck and realized my head was bleeding. Otherwise I wouldn't have gone inside. How strange and fortunate to find pictures of myself and my family on a desk and table; I no longer felt so bad about my trespass! Clearly this stalker of me had great taste in art and food and music, I thought, as I snacked on their Blue Diamond sea-salted almonds and sweet peanut-butter coated granola bars while listening to the Jimi Hendrix Experience in stereo on vinyl. They even had my favorite hot sauce and moonrocks, and brown eggs, too. Then some baby tigers approached me and looked to me like I was their leader. I offered them coleslaw but they weren't interested - not until I drew a puddle of sweet cream across a saucer for them.

Nobody ever came home, so I made the place mine with very little rearranging necessary. I even answered the phones with a catchy name I made up which was well-received, and all of the magical passwords which came to mind automatically, opened me into their systems so I could learn exactly who I was supposed to be, in one week time, and all my new clothes fit perfectly. How fortunate I cracked my head open on that singular stormy evening! Otherwise I might still have nothing and be nobody, and that was no way to be. Damn. Now I'm gonna have to consider paying taxes.

the cats don't know what to do with me

i saw my bean counter guy at the café today and got the word on the new release, soon to be roasted. i'm not a big fan of ethiopian so i discarded the news while enjoying the curious taste of the organic peru being served. i bought a cup of that. i like this café because here it's presumed you are a human being and worth talking to, which may not go for much in other cultures but trust me, here in corporate america there are plenty of spaces where no one will talk to you and you will draw suspicion if you try and be friendly. i got a croissant, went home and fried an egg with bacon to put inside it. i burnt the bacon but not all of it. my coffee got cold so i took the opportunity to reheat it on the stove with some rice milk and dark chocolate, swiss miss. i'm pretty sure i planned it that way. meanwhile my car was being ticketed across the street without my knowledge. i was enjoying my mocha while sitting on my couch in the morning light, a furry throw pillow supporting my lower back and the coffee table setup perfectly before me to hold my laptop and allow me an ideal position to work on my novel, which i did for a half hour or more before i spilled my coffee on my new faux oriental rug, cursing under my breath and running for a rag and some water. the cats don't know what to do with me. now i owe the city of Sacramento fifty-two bucks for street cleaning obstruction, and the driver's side tire keeps deflating on me so it will have to be replaced. all these setbacks broke the fragile beauty of my writing bubble, so i took a nap. i found myself irritable in a meeting at noon. at least i showed up. i perked up a little after meeting a few new friends to discuss fresh applications of narrative therapy, not a widely embraced modality but we wish it was. i guess it all started in australia, too, which makes me smile. damn, i could use a vacation down under or enveloped in the mountain folds of new zealand. i think i even have friends there. too bad my passport's expired and i can't afford to travel. honestly i'm just trying to keep my microcosm together and live an honorable life and keep my bubbles sparkling whole in the air.

Journal # 01.17.17

The life is dynamic again, i go from the placid waters with the oars up, sittting peacefully on my raft with my legs hanging off the back and the little cyclones of water, gazing behind me lost in thought, to this inevitable drop again, not a waterfall anymore but something approaching rapids and i swear i don't have a helluva a lot of confidence in myself to navigate the rapids, i really worry i am gonna lose control and hit a rock and go flying. but i am used to hitting the ground hard and getting up with a busted hip or knee and limping around for a while feeling bad for myself. that's something i know how to do really well.

GWB 2.5.2 -- video book

all in all

all in all
tinge of darkness under
 the eyes
lips the color
of dawn
smile the shade of
sunrise

find me missing

Astonishing how i found myself in my favorite blade in the couch again. then there was the case of the vanishing wristband, i needed it for a trail run cuz it has a secret zippered pocket where i keep my latchkey. the latchkey in me is base like bullion. when i searched for the key i found the blade. only in searching for an antidote to my general anxiety did i find the key. and yes, the key did more than let me in; it stymied the malaise i had worrying some stranger might be preparing to key my flat in the middle of the night and find me, missing.

'Forced Entries' - a book review

Forced Entries: The Downtown Diaries: 1971-1973 by Jim Carroll
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

I enjoyed reading Jim Carroll's movement from all out junkie in NYC to mostly clean weedhead in California then traveling back to NYC to re-experience it like a challenge he was taking on for himself in his new sparkly dried out persona. - may he rest in peace - You almost think the kid didn't stand much of a chance, hobnobbing with celebrity at Max's and getting dissed by Warhol over the phone, because Warhol only wanted to talk to him when he was wired on speed (and recorded these phone calls apparently). Great street level perspective of NYC in the early seventies. Jim Carroll is an brutally honest sorta writer, so be prepared to go under carpets with him and hangout with fragments of cheese doodles and mites. Or inside a festering abscess. He certainly won't glorify substance abuse or addiction, so you don't need to worry about your children. Or do you? I found the first half of the book a little harder to get through, a lot of socializing with Ginsberg and name dropping (though anyone could be envious to hang out with William Burroughs and Bob Dylan for a night). Sometimes I felt he was writing to impress his celebrity buds. But mostly I admire Jim Carroll, I consider him a strong writer and the survivor we know by his Basketball Diaries. This book was supposed to be a sorta sequel to that one. He didn't stand a chance as a kid himself going deep on the streets, yet he always respected the muse and was a real creative mind, and a local new yorker in his heart. The second half of the book I found a bit clearer, more honest, and particularly his return from Bolinas to NYC. The last quarter of the book was a straight read, I hunkered down in my apartment and really got into it. It ends well, I mean, more intimate and heartfelt. A good read.


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Grand Theft Life Book 1.6

Girl Without Borders Book 2.5.1

Grand Theft Life Book 1.5

Girl Without Borders Book 2.4.2

stigmata. a tease

"There’s no time to brood and worry, what a waste worry would be, like playing your xbox until you’re utterly xuded and eyes tend to bleed, walk outside and get mobbed by the faithful seeking miracles and stigmata. I believe in Kell, and she believes in me, or at least I wanna believe she believes in me cuz I believe in her. We lost our connection, so what? Lines get cut every day. May we be among the faithful, abiding miracles."   --  from Ame and The Tangy Energetic (Book #3)

cover book #2 by katya

digital ink child

maybe the sweetest moment of writing a book
 comes when      the intangibles
                            the tangibles

coalesce into a unified

tale
whole fiction
       re.creation
    en.vision


abstracted (out) then dropped back (in) to the world

the conveyance
your child of
digital ink

 surrounds

like an atmosphere
like an aura
like a concert
like a principle
like a faith

maybe even warms a heart
or two

finally makes sense
and not only
to you

GRAND THEFT LIFE 1.4.1

GRAND THEFT LIFE 1.3

tea told coffee off

Tea told coffee, calm down
Coffee had somethin to say! and much too much to do!
Coffee made everyone irritable
Even tea

Pre-meditating in Coventry Gardens
Tea told coffee off

make me get outta bed

Getting up last night for work turned out to be the same as getting up was last year, this year. I felt simply unwilling to push the blankets away and step into the cold unheated air. I thought what with my incredible anti-depressive mentality things would be different this year, but they weren't. The logistics are always painful. Once I got outta bed and put my malt-o-meal on the stove and took my meds with leftover cadillac (the chocolate residue on the bottom churned back into the mix with some flexible wrist action), I could breathe again. The cats were all crying for food and I must provide. Otherwise it will be a claw to the neck when you least suspect.  Life is demanding as always. And faith is still there, waiting to be called upon, to get you through.

K. #6099 CIM

Journal # 01.02.17

I started my day with a cadillac. Home-roasted Sumatra pour over combined with Swiss Miss dark hot chocolate. Some good music in Tycho's latest album 'Epoch'. Now seated at my desk and writing. This is where I love to be, what I love to do. I figure the more I can give myself this chance, the better off I am for you, too. I will give it my all today. Lucky #2017

finish line CIM. 2016

2017 indie vs hybrid scalawag for the fanatics

Happy New Year to anyone who reads this blog! I consider you a friend and ally. Last month I bought two critical texts which may help me refine my future, in the work sphere of life. The 2017 Writer's Market and the DSM-5. The latter is the latest diagnostic manual I need to improve my currency in the counseling psychology field. I am coming up on 9 years as a career counselor. The Writer's Market is the latest edition of a text widely known to help independent authors find representation for their work. I have been a real scalawag in the area of publishing, all my life long, if not a clueless no-talent scribbler!* I must not have wanted 2 pay for postage, cuz I always wanted to be traditionally published. I danced around the Book Expo and chose instead to blog (circa 2007) and self-publish (circa 2013).

I've been indie happy with my small circle of fanatics (term of endearment) , and fellow readers and writers, but seeing how it's the new year and all, what with the charmed feeling you get exhaling old ideas and ways of being, I wanted you to know that I am contemplating holding back on self-publishing my latest effort: "Ame and the Tangy Energetic". Had I made my personal deadline, I would have self-published in 2016. But I did not. And the book is not yet finished to my standard.

If you don't read my books, no worries, I plan to keep posting flash fiction, video books, book reviews, and creative non-fiction daily, right here on this website. If you do read my books, I want to thank you for your patience. I may decide to self-publish this year. But I am leaning towards using the Writer's Market to locate a traditional home for the book over the course of the next 12 months. I would like to be a hybrid and have the choice of traditional publishing. Why not? I have devoted so much of my life to the craft of writing.    -K

* The self-identifier 'clueless no-talent scribbler' has been offset by some minor accolades in recent years. In 2016, KatYa's novel Maze was chosen by the Sacramento Public Library for representation in the annual local Author Festival. Also in 2016, KatYa's website Vitamin K surpassed 100,000 views online, and currently stands at 140,000 strong, and growing. This self-deprecating indie author (and human being) has been a much beloved contributer to G.Plus Poetry circles, and her books, all carefully calibrated works of literary fiction, have received close to 100 reviews averaging 4+ STARS on both Amazon and Goodreads.com.