katkarney

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