jojo mills
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jojomills.bsky.social
jojo mills
@jojomills.bsky.social
170 followers 300 following 140 posts
We are, each of us, unique poems kissed by the haughty Sun. Here are some of my lines. Enjoy if you must, leave your shoes at the door and your thoughts down below.
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jojo mills @jojomills.bsky.social · Feb 11
#poetry #inthistogether #art
‘This is our poem’ It is nothing, to be everything A frame before the pull of canvas A dusk before sprayed constellations This is more than just a poem It is anything you could imagine Anything. So take a breath to think— Right there, see The pearls of past or The sands of future or The heights of a fantasy What will it do Let you wallow or Let it come to pass or Let it amplify your dreams Well that, dear poet Between and past these lines Now is up to you—
jojomills.bsky.social
Not, Not For Sale

#poetry #art #writingcommunity
Not, Not For Sale Not so good at selling myself— not for lack of want, I guess. But slice this part, for what price? Do I sell it by ounce, or a la carte? And worse, I just can’t stand there on nubs that used to be my feet, yelling out, while not exactly waving what used to grasp so dearly— Come one and all, you can’t live without! —when clearly, you’d see I could. And the fellow down the street is almost gone for good. -J.A.Miller
November 27, 2025 at 8:10 PM
jojomills.bsky.social
Siren cry on a dewy perch

#poetry #art #writingcommunity
Siren cry on a dewy perch Questing, plumage ruffled under warrant for a jeweled criminal, thief of my entire heart. Singing— his wings in the wind— after ribbons of gold unfurling. -J.A.Miller
November 17, 2025 at 8:34 PM
jojomills.bsky.social
Last year I joined 23 poets on this global project. Presenting: “The Water and Us: Poems for WaterAid”

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All proceeds to WaterAid—devoted to providing that most vital resource. Help make a difference and enjoy our art while you’re at it!

#poetry #art #writingcommunity #wateraid
The Water And Us: Poems for WaterAid: Amazon.co.uk: Ashton, Taylor J, Lielupe, A L, Members, Poetry City: 9798271526749: Books
Buy The Water And Us: Poems for WaterAid by Ashton, Taylor J, Lielupe, A L, Members, Poetry City (ISBN: 9798271526749) from Amazon's Book Store. Everyday low prices and free delivery on eligible order...
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November 13, 2025 at 6:18 PM
jojomills.bsky.social
A Sorry Thing

#poetry #art #writingcommunity
A Sorry Thing I saw the roses sagging, shedding their rosy spring joy, wilting till all was left was thorns. I saw the willow weeping— weeping!—as more neighbors fell. I saw, I saw a bright lump of fur, cold and still beneath a friend, and crying, crying in a howl. In pools below my crowded brows, I saw a sorry thing— wild for itself. -J.A.Miller
November 12, 2025 at 1:14 AM
jojomills.bsky.social
In the Ocean, an Island out of Refuse

#poetry #art #writingcommunity
In the Ocean, an Island out of Refuse Not underwater though air, like a thin unseen fluid I swim fins flap-flapping in the eddies of life waking my lungs, on loan cast out so little carbon for tree-shade built of canopies and poison roots to weed I would not sell my gills for this, for you to read among such salt urine and spilt seed but something in this nursery, primordial sea a treasure lost to sands sinking big dreams fresh caught for market price by piece -J.A. Miller
November 11, 2025 at 4:53 AM
jojomills.bsky.social
Starlights, Drama, Action!

#poetry #art #writingcommunity
Starlights, Drama, Action! Last night—like every—was crucial for The Picture. Again I donned that casting director’s cap and cast you, a dream, bright-eyed atop the Minnesota prairie hills in Mother’s and Auntie’s umber van, racing from iridescent city’s glow, peeling away in a smoke  of regrets curled into laughter, asking if we could turn off at midnight because the air was crisp, pulling wisps of clouds like weeds and the seeds of eternity were blooming  overhead. We start where we end. Sweet corny, film grains, siloed soliloquy. Because the layers of tragedy— the shoot-outs,  shoot-ups, betrayals, and bollards— strain senses of straight-laced audiences but your face, doe-soft and wide-shot saw through—the infestation and grime of New York City crawl spaces, racing  a frantic traffic in hot Chicago sprawl,  and all the glitz and glamour of a dusty  panorama  where Appalachia went to die— saw something, stepping through  the cobwebs and spike tape  and all kinds of men with blades and cut-up minds, saw a light hung on stilts, which filled past a sweeping soundstage sky. So with a cheap but pricey wooden sword  from some Ren Faire trip, on a cicada score played on the corn silk strings, the lines are said and beats are marked reaching, rolling, greedy for award. But this space don’t last like celluloid, and Hollywood has already moved on, and the credits are fading to mist, yet I  clip at the reel, stealing frames I feel like props off a striking set: a knife, a plastic dying plant, a model train  that your cousin built—when he  was living method in his parents’ divorce  and you talked him through it: how it would hurt, how you’d change into the skins I needed to survive, the costume to fit a part. His voice—mine—in a roar toward a faceless villain I could nitrate burn and, no matter how far the drive, the lenses in the night sky would find me,  bright-eyed, to croon at my silvering screen  of classic, captivating cinema. Till house lights co…
November 1, 2025 at 7:28 PM
jojomills.bsky.social
And This

#poetry #haiku #art #writingcommunity
And This ember leaf bed— tree rings bared wet years and this -J.A.Miller
October 28, 2025 at 9:41 PM
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Creature.exe /run

#poetry #art #writingcommunity
Creature.exe /run >director, it works in marvelous ways our math carved us apart and summed us up as one >director, it lives! if living is reduced to twitching bits and strings of pulsing circuitry >director, it speaks sewn apiece of our dreams and ripples of our echoes we’d never leave in peace >director, it is like the atom torn open and juiced and stitched up for our uses >director, it profits us greatly to feed it more and feed it to a world so hungry to eat itself >director, it scares me wearing these many faces I can no more see the seams it isn’t real, it isn’t real >director, it— director? dir— director, it is me —j.a.miller
October 27, 2025 at 6:07 PM
jojomills.bsky.social
As a deeply flammable thing

#poetry #art #writingcommunity
As a deeply flammable thing in the reading room, perhaps you tend the wick you spark the match to life and such warm and fragile light thus cast feral kitten, lap-lapping at the walls warm and fragile—glowing iron, shards of glass the candle flame never wavers from burning unquenched, the yearning for grease, for sheets, and wooden beams the candle flame and its gentle way on lithe skin, bright works Is hot enough to melt and char them you are afraid of that heat you are too afraid you are not enough afraid the moment The Flint was struck The Bomb was dropped the moment The Flint was struck The Moon was touched live without and never leave the cold-slick cave all glass eyes and pallid young or leave—to meet the flame’s blazing mother Sun. -J.A.Miller
October 22, 2025 at 3:42 PM
jojomills.bsky.social
Once in a lifetime!

#poetry #art #writingcommunity
Once in a lifetime! If I was going to take the sky from you I would wait till a bad Monday when you get home from a long one say stay up past bedtime to see something sensational truly terrific, on the scale of creation— And it will rain or cloud or just be less than such billions of brilliant pixels and hands have poured, dazzling through your mind— And still stain all of it with amber streetlights so you couldn’t tell what you weren’t missing— And I’ll say what is wrong with you, not dizzy deep in love— And I’ll enjoy it, the touch of heavens for my own— No gravity on your bones glued to a wide, flat land. -J.A.Miller
October 21, 2025 at 5:34 PM
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Again, Again, the Rising Crescendo!

#poetry #art #writingcommunity #grieg
Again, Again, the Rising Crescendo! (after Grieg’s “In the Hall of the Mountain King”) If you would feel more small smaller still as you are than the meager four walls you are in the slight city you inhabit ickle island of a tiny planet then go to greet the morning king rising from the long, cold slumber from beneath the rocky swell of old earth and murky depths let sandy toes to bathe in surf oh, you minute mote of a pilgrim watch: the melting of gray slate twilight into a lavender vault across the wide reach listen: the mounting flurry of every small thing sucking deep breaths of the ebullient heat bubbles giving over to briskly simmering setting the cream and heavy custard sky a sparkling crown cresting over horizon breaking the silence of such soft sleepers the glorious ember of dawn yawns into brilliance the slow, unstoppable march toward a zenith— again, again. Another teeming day. -J.A.Miller
October 17, 2025 at 4:16 PM
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unnamed (what fame)

#poetry #art #writingcommunity #truecrime #halloween
unnamed (what fame) in green, bright grasses the kind for picnic baskets digging puppies and wiggle worms middle of nowhere and everywhere farm boy resting between his ma and pa for a change no pillow, no bed no stone to lay his head (looted) just as well to go unmarked as our culture wants no claim of the monsters in our creases no renown (yes, right!) for killer clowns or kooky cannibals look here (look away!) and don’t look down at green, bright grasses where everyone will go killers and kindest best’m be unseen except’n marquee and silver screen where the ghoul can remain away as many rubber masks (sensation!) not festering as feed beneath our green, bright grasses. -J.A.Miller
October 7, 2025 at 12:57 AM
jojomills.bsky.social
Landmarks on the long drive

#poetry #art #writingcommunity
Landmarks on the long drive Every year in the southern swell of summer, I return past the many landmarks to my other home with my other family. Where latchkey freedom painted me in sunburn and sugar rush at the crick, playing with the katydids and crawfish. Where I had my first kiss and a realization—I would rather not kiss her again. Where I saw my first naughty magazine and began to realize, maybe I’d rather not kiss any girl again. A first crack in the chassis of who I ought to be. Every year at a crossroad, halfway from town to the holler, an old tractor waits on a grassed-up hill. Powder blue except where peeling gives way to rust. A dozen or maybe a hundred years, rather patient for wind and rain to finish its melting into the land. I don’t want to know how long it’s been since it broke and no one could fix it. Because one year I’ll pass by for the last time and the grass will grow over that spot, where I’ll see it was hauled away and torn to parts, bones strewn across some scrapyard. -J.A.Miller
September 25, 2025 at 3:33 PM
jojomills.bsky.social
Give it a rest.

#poetry #art #writingcommunity
Give it a rest. in peace sing all the hymns you want scrub the past bleach it clean because you mustn’t speak ill of the dead no sins in graves only saints. let us all just say it doesn’t matter who else gets hurt along the way no life, of course is worth more than the next, of course except by the wealth of bouquets sure, let sweet poetry erase all deeds but those that meet your aims and, as is good and deserved, then even poor Judas can rest in peace. -J.A.Miller
September 22, 2025 at 10:00 PM
jojomills.bsky.social
Not quite an end of everything

#poetry #art #writingcommunity
Not quite an end of everything In heavy huffs the last warm days soaked into tired vines as our Summer slinks away Scour the rows for late picks the last of plump heirlooms the last bit of sunwarm juice drips from fingers to elbows Sweet and rich, with a pinch salt and pepper and memory a memory of dirt under nails a memory of giddy freedom A memory of the proud heat for the soon-trudging feet through crisp leaves then snow Till next the fruit of Summer grows -J.A.Miller
September 19, 2025 at 3:36 PM
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Lessons from Tom

#poetry #art #writingcommunity #classiclit #twain
Lessons from Tom I’ve a task to do whistling through despite appearance oh, so fun you’d love it more than my curb appeal use my favored brush splinters worn away how I’d miss it you should pay me for the pleasure to join to take a thin white stain and wash clean your memories of me the years have bared to the burning light a simple coat spruce the neighborhood fill your yard green I’d never ask you or tell you to do what I gladly do for free -J.A.Miller
September 17, 2025 at 3:43 PM
jojomills.bsky.social
creationzine.gumroad.com/l/creationis...

Very proud to contribute to this excellent first issue!

#art #poetry #writingcommunity #zine #antiwar #essay
crea+ion zine issue 1- Art&War
crea+ion is a digital, non-profit zine that explores the many intersections between art and the forces that shape our lives — politics, identity, grief, joy, memory, and more. Each issue focuses on a ...
creationzine.gumroad.com
September 15, 2025 at 12:52 PM
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A Metropolitan Tapestry

#poetry #art #writingcommunity
A Metropolitan Tapestry woven threads like child scrawls power lines and webs of lies miles of looming circuitry squint to the distance to almost see the shape it makes spaghetti strands pulled through urban singularity where they stitch into tangled beauty knots in the scribbled cacophony atop the mess sports car treads first date roses red and hurried heads bowed low through music in the streets patches patterned teeming embroidery stretched taut amid the sirens and symphony -J.A.Miller
September 14, 2025 at 5:05 PM
jojomills.bsky.social
H idIn Ink

#poetry #art #writingcommunity
H idIn Ink T hree wor  d sIca n’ts  a yand mor  e alon gth  e way,b eca u seIa maf r aid,s oIh i dthe mli  k edro psi n ther ain. -J.A.Miller
August 30, 2025 at 2:54 PM
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Triage

#poetrt #art #writingcommuniy
Triage Stained with the sin of the monsters because every time one emerges giving in to monstrous urges the claw marks gouged into our parks chalkboards smiling faces guts twist, hoping this one, this time doesn’t share a thing with me beyond a heart that beats a name a flag a kind before I can return to the hard work of this never-ending mourning living under a dire warning next one, yours or mine? —J.A.Miller
August 28, 2025 at 12:01 AM
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Free Samples!

#poetry #art #writingcommunity
August 26, 2025 at 2:40 AM
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If I Lie

#poetry #art #writingcommunity
August 25, 2025 at 6:09 PM
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Papilio polyxenes

#poetry #art #writingcommunity #poetsofbluesky #poetrycommunity #creativewriting #naturepoetry 💛🤯
Papilio polyxenes To be called Butterfly, what indignity! A cartoon condescension. Rather to know me as Papilio polyxenes, if you must know of my story. Once I drank from the swill of my parents’ wisdom, in milkweed garden home, I stitched a handsome canvas. Yes, stitched in my green skin my fight to take flight, with lift from my painting, swallowing the days  of my larval crawling. And finally the spreading. My new wings. Oh, too soon! Shivering, twitching, in my eager insistence to show off, lusting to wear only the dawn, for another— as hunters were too near and a mate so far, so far away. A slim chance already, yet a fate I’d dare to give chase. The Sun and rain were kind, I remember them soft  on my limbs, as I flourished the ornament  of my brilliant false face— red eyes leering from a void to frighten dangers away. Though one hunter saw through my disguise —And we raced! We raced! With just enough time to escape,  I was maimed— my pride was cut, veins torn. Born to fly, yes, but, too, my flight was worn. Wan but ardent still. Still ardent! But long, too long, to the Summer land, late to the promised dance— A sorry thing with tattered wing, none would give even a pitying glance. What chance for such offspring as mine? A curse. Oh, so scarred, so unlucky  and brutally lamed.  So I found one last blossom, to sip and rest my spanning shame. Slowly fanning in the breeze, watching the pairs flit away. Their pristine art gifted with gilded frame— blessing from that kindly, setting Sun —Before I could offer claim my scar was proof: Oh, how swift I did run! Oh, how bright I did run! Life—full, mauled, magnificent. Oh, Butterfly, how I did run. -J.A.Miller
August 23, 2025 at 10:07 AM
jojomills.bsky.social
remembering what needs to be remebered, against a regime that is happy to erase us.

June 12th, 2016: 49 people were murdered, and 53 people maimed, for daring to live in defiance of conservative religion.

We will not be erased.

#poetry #art #writingcommunity
💛🤯

a Pulse that was and is
a Pulse that was and is the pulse of the night Thump—Thump—Thump  libations liberation Bump—Bump—Bump and grinding heels into a dance floor  sweating sweethearts dancing with abandon  like no one cares Bop—Bop—Bop primal proud Bang—Bang—Bang like the sound of bullets— the sound of bullets Bang—Bang—Bang boldly bloody so the rhythm goes screaming Run! Run! Run! hidden hunted cries of goodbye, calling home for loving for living the pulsing stopped on that night— not forever— defiant hearts are beating Thump—Thump—Thump persisting existing through all of the bleeding to dance like free again  and again and again -J.A.Miller
August 22, 2025 at 3:15 PM