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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

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

jojo mills

@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

jojo mills

@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

jojo mills

@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

jojo mills

@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

jojo mills

@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

jojo mills

@jojomills.bsky.social

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

jojo mills

@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

jojo mills

@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

jojo mills

@jojomills.bsky.social

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

jojo mills

@jojomills.bsky.social

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

jojo mills

@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

jojo mills

@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

jojo mills

@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

jojo mills

@jojomills.bsky.social

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

jojo mills

@jojomills.bsky.social

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

jojo mills

@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

jojo mills

@jojomills.bsky.social

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

jojo mills

@jojomills.bsky.social

Free Samples!

#poetry #art #writingcommunity

August 26, 2025 at 2:40 AM

jojo mills

@jojomills.bsky.social

If I Lie

#poetry #art #writingcommunity

August 25, 2025 at 6:09 PM

jojo mills

@jojomills.bsky.social

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

jojo mills

@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