katkarney

Pain and Practicality

Posted on December 11, 2018September 4, 2021 by katkarney

Cleveland winters destroy me: sleet slushes, salt oxidizes, the sun sets at 5pm.

I noticed salt on my favorite pair of boots. I spent a therapeutic night cleaning, conditioning, and shining every pair I own.

Boots, like musicians’ instruments, are an extension of the owner. When the object is separated from the person, you can still see their soul and form.

Winter effaces all remaining hope of seeing god’s daylight.

Remember to take care of your soul, love. Start by cleaning your boots!

a good boot

my clean boots

are set in a row.

i like to look at them

as the one true proof

that i existed.

they show me

how i’d like to be –

the laces twine

thick leather binds –

never weak or weary.

a good boot is

so supportive

that it practically

walks through hell

by its own volition!

how fine to see

them in a line

and to reflect

on the measureless

distance wandered

The Manhattan Project

Posted on November 27, 2018September 4, 2021 by katkarney

On Thanksgiving, Grandma told us about her life, about our Polish heritage. For the first time she delved into the pain of moving nineteen homes in nineteen years. She talked about her father working on the A-Bomb during WWII. She talked about how her mother fed everybody that came to their ever-changing houses. She talked about love and acceptance and isolation. We ate cheesecake. We laughed. My heart is full. And if you ever feel lonesome or want to hang out, I can make you the best pierogies.

oak ridge blues

i missed the lilies of the valley
outside my city window
where my snow-white spitz died.
always kept in the dark, always moving.
picking tulips where graves were dug.

daddy was only home on weekends.
silent soldiers followed him to the farm.
mama’s beer and chicken dinners
deferred the weight of their atomic secrets:
they did what had to be done.

i was disowned, once,
for marrying a methodist.
whispered in radioactive horror,
throttled like cancer in pink lace gloves.
they did what had to be done.

i know they were right and wrong.
the greatest flaw in humanity
is pretending to know christian love.
but mama always fed the drifters
oh, mama really fed the strays.

The Sunbright Drifter

Posted on November 20, 2018September 4, 2021 by katkarney

This weekend I tagged along with my husband’s band to North Carolina and Tennessee as they played a few shows. I met my hero, got a sunburn, and gained some couch-surfing clarity. I wrote this upon waking up Sunday morning in a roomful of people who I love. It’s called the Nashville Blues because I had to learn these wandering truths: The record always skips on your favorite song. Dog shit abounds when you wear your best dancing boots. Traveling is bittersweet – you make such beautiful connections, and then ache for the people and places you leave behind.

nashville blues

sunday barely rose
on the sleepers
crumpled like faded leaves on
the threshold of morning.
stirring under the gaze of Freya,
six swaying wisps of ether

time is relative
and place is of
no consequence.
without a guiding
light in the zenith,
without hope to regain
sweet anticipation
of meeting your god.
i miss the certainty
on life’s fringes,
when i still believed.

last night’s pretty girls
have gone home.
we stake our fears
on the new day
where strangers slay
unborn truth
by repeating
scenes of
faded worship.

time seems
quite fixed, now,
pinned to the
moment we next meet.
hot in a slate box
twined in a strange cot
not knowing when
true rest will come.

time was always free!
she slipped past our plans
and left me only
with blisters
from dancing

the sunbright drifter.JPG

City Of Angels

Posted on November 14, 2018September 4, 2021 by katkarney

This is about missing a place that I’ve only seen in dreams and movies. This is about helplessness in the face of a disaster.

santa ana winds

paradise, charred,
profoundly silent in its finality
velvet drawn over a brick wall
slips like mist beyond this totality

the santa ana winds
drive you to suicide,
impulsive murder,
they fuel wildfires
with flamboyant despair.
clouded air stings
of ocher woodsmoke
laced with sex and the taste
of your lips from my dreams.

paradise burnt.
don’t hedge bets on merciful profanity.
just carve a firebreak in your heart
and slip like mist beyond this totality.

fire

DIY Betrayal

Posted on November 10, 2018September 4, 2021 by katkarney

I had a feeling that someone was standing next to my bed, watching me sleep.

This settled into uneasy nightmares where I got dumped in the Home Depot lightbulb aisle for a cosmic stripper, who magically appeared upon the scene.
I ran and hid in the storeroom, wild in grief, sobbing behind the rows of refrigerators, among metallic coils. The store manager called a dear friend and mentor, who characteristically arrived in a timely fashion, and convinced me to leave the store. I went to live with him and his wife on their farm, and was assigned the task of feeding their ducks.
I am not sure if it is a poem of gratitude for their friendship, or one about self-doubt and general despair.
And as for the betrayal of being dream dumped: Do you ever get upset at people for what they do in dreams?

saybrook blues

you set me free for nothing.
free as a wild and broken thing.
free to mend the schism where
i faltered and fell from the first

lifted to another plane
free from freon fetters
and acrid suffering
free to hijack your stride
and your best clothes
following fallow furrows
free with webbed feet
tracking

free to love myself

you set me free for nothing
free as a wild and broken thing.

Recurring Nightmare

Posted on October 31, 2018September 4, 2021 by katkarney

I have a dream about once a month from the point of view of a small girl, running shoeless from a strangler in the cold autumn mud.

I make it to a wooded area and try to hide in a ditch, frantically concealing my bright dress and white tights with leaves.

He finds me every time, and sometimes I don’t wake up from the horror of his approach. That’s how I know he’s a strangler.

the strangler

bold, though i knew not

just where the hook caught

trenching pain in place.

cold, though the sunshine

cut through a bruised vine

deep in velvet space

slow, though my lungs fought

thick glue and blood clot

wrapped in neon grace

i sleepwalk all night

and never save you.

i wake up each day

and never escape.

don’t leave me where

i cannot find you,

where demons prey

my sordid dreams

First Memory

Posted on October 24, 2018September 4, 2021 by katkarney

Welcome!

This is a space to share my poems and dreams. Eventually, I’d like to compile these thoughts into a little prayer-book of sorts. Let me know your thoughts!

This poem is about one of my first memories: the violence of being (accidentally) stabbed and the incongruous societal expectation that you must tough it out, you have to “kiss-and make-up”, and then you move forward. Anybody with siblings knows how fast this turnaround between war and peace is expected, and sometimes it is frankly bullshit.

—————————

forgiveness

i once held joy

but you culled it.

because you could.

because love is

capricious and eternal

violence.

you sliced so deftly,

cutting the hand

instinctively raised

to protect myself.

the horror of your mouth

let me know how it was.

i froze in the retreat

of your convict

conscience.

i didn’t scream

until they held me down

dug lead out,

and scolded me

for dying.

you didn’t cry

until they tracked you down,

drew you out,

and punished you

for lying.

where do we learn

to rehearse these battles,

to deny pain a stage,

to playact forgiveness?

feign trust

but wait

for the knife

you voiced regret

but i nulled it.

because i could.

because love is

vindictive and ceaseless

silence.

Permanence in poetry as in love is perceived instantly. It has not to await the test of time. The proof of a poem is not that we have never forgotten it, but that we knew at sight that we could never forget it. — Robert Frost