Author: katkarney

Irrational fear:  I am scared of mice.  A few times growing up, they got into my bedroom, tore up tissues, and nested in my stuffed animals.  If I hear one in my house, scattering in the attic, scraping in the wall, if I catch a glimpse of one in a field, my blood freezes. I do not know why their ability to shatter my peace of mind has such a hold on me.

There’s a character named Brown Jenkin in the H.P. Lovecraft story ‘The Dreams in the Witch House.”  He is a familiar that has the body of a rat and a man’s face.  Sometimes I have states where I am awake but unable to move.  Where I know that I am probably dreaming the interdimensional-rat-human-hybrid is behind me, but cannot fully snap out of it.

interdimensional rodent

i respawn in a room i know
covered in bruised angles
he is there
trapped in the wall behind the bed
caught among jagged bits
of opioid-dazed fantasy

i cannot fight or move or scream
submerged in paralysis
he is here
freed from the drywall labyrinth
feel near, his steady breath
a vile, scraping form among us

i respawn in a room i know
of dazed, cold reality
he’s not here
i alight from my carousel
of uncertain nightmares
i hope that rat never finds me

an october parting

pride is a vulture
your jacket next to mine
a catch in my throat
a thousand fractured mirrors
reflecting the door
where we first met

all this time i’ve leaned on you:
french hellos
a kiss goodbye
scraps of what i meant to say

you like my writing
how i shoot it through with light
my words can never burn
brighter than your farewell smile

It’s dark in the morning and the sun sets early.

I bought a new LED headlamp to walk the dog. I look like a coal miner on the way to her shift with disposable dogshit bags peeking out of a flannel jacket.

We like this routine, lab and I. Walking November streets, illuminating frozen Halloween decorations with blue-white lamp-beams.

Lab and I chip away at the coal-black seams of morning.

Each day is a promise of sunless nothing.

We shoot it through with light.

november jack-o-lantern

the plagued autumn dawns

a broken soul with vacant eyes
waits for a flame to light the way

frost begs the sun from knowing
she never lived for herself at all

carved as a diversion
scraping the strands of her mind

good things must falter
cold and gutted on the doorstep

we were never meant to survive the fall

Unholy Imaginings – the ebook:

https://geaugalibrary.pressbooks.pub/unholyimaginings

Stay tuned for other eBook formats, and a print version (Christmas 2019.)

Much love to you as always!

-K

I will be publishing an ebook of my finalized poems this Wednesday.  Stay tuned!

In the meantime… an old poem.

I have a fantastic couch that’s been with me through some pretty rough times.  There were a few moments in 2018 where my life was shattered, and so were the lives of people that I love.  Sometimes, they held me on my couch while I wept.  Sometimes I held them and tried to be brave.  This poem is about a time we gathered up uncertainties in our arms and comforted one another in picturesque grief.

In my mind’s eye, it looks like Michaelangelo’s ‘Pietà’ sculpture.  Greasier, of course, and unholy… definitely a lot more denim.   But I felt all of it: the pain, the beauty, the absurdity.  I feel it still.  I cannot unravel the idea of this sculpture from the couch or you or the country music that moved us.  I am often lost in a pained misunderstanding of forgiveness as I try to be a better person.

We all have our crosses to bear.

Much love to you, as always.

honkytonk pietà

the sculptor intended
for you to hold me
cradling my still form
your delicate features
set with marble intensity

you thought i had died
and, darling, so did i
but i rose again
just to tell more lies
(they look so pretty in a poem!)

we belong together
two glorious forms,
who twine so perfectly
they must be wrought
from the same stone

📸: Photo – 29-SEP-2019 – A photo I took out of my hotel window when I couldn’t sleep in Reykjavik.

Poem:  Scribblings from a hotel near the airport, prior to flight back to the USA.  01-OCT-2019.

reaching a higher plane of understanding via insomnia

jet engines roar past the airport hotel
lifting my hurt into the purpled sky
as we once sought to ascend pain together

back when i thought the higher plane of understanding
meant finding our way back
instead of moving forward, alone

i count the streetlights outside of my window
sleek, elongated rectangles on the ends of delicate arcs
bright, halogen rays that fade at sunrise

there were luxurious depths
of time and care we spent on each other
and a day simply dawned when we couldn’t

make me a wraith

i stalk my
neighborhood
at nightfall

where spirits
take the form of deer
and move through
parallel pillars
of the oak-lined
suburban sidewalks

i seek them
i beg to belong
i plead

make me a wraith
beyond reproach
not some faded housewife
in a pastel-denim-tiled
suicide nightmare

unconcerned with my existence
the deer sprawl like iron sculptures
on the lawns of perfect brick houses

my black heels rasp
against cement
my slack-mouth
spreads into
a streetlit
smile

some one waits for us

a shutter snaps
from the darkest
stripe of shadow

blurring
what
we claim
to be

seafoam green moss
carpets the ancient
lava field

it is very important
that you never step
on the moss

a rare species
that takes centuries
to grow one centimeter

my clavicles ache
a fine-boned
hollowing bliss

i transform into
a white swan
and twirl to the sky

the land flashing

green
black
yellow

beneath my wings

viking

down by the spires
in ice blue waters
i wait
for the bow
of your longship
to graze the black sand beach

aurora borealis

bathed in bright green tears
the despair of the past year
transmutes into light

two border collies
rest on the hillside
of the old farm

barking
dutiful
but soft
warnings

as i pace up
the black
gravel
driveway

a marmalade barncat
follows me
claws out

hunting
writhing
stretching

until dark
stones stick
to her orange coat

we walk together
in silence

the sheep judge
the swans sob
and horses
remain aloof

i suspect
they have
done this
eternally

more ancient
and intangible
than the
volcanic mountains
in the purple distance

for i
touched
their
angles
this
morning