Author: katkarney

04-02-2019
Westbound out of Los Banos in April

green folds of earth surround me
i want to know what it looks like in late summer
if i could love it any other way

westbound, towards the Pacific
to Big Sur, to things i know and love
but have yet to experience

I. Pothole Blues

pungent tar
patches March potholes
Cleveland spring

II. Water Main Break Blues

silt sprays upwards
into the impossibly
blossomed street

III. Sinkhole Blues

men spend hours
hammering asphalt
turning iron rods
finally able to quiet
the hemorrhaging
of the city’s arteries

I. Upper Respiratory Fever Dream

my chest is the shredded wreckage
of a capsized windsail
twisting about
in the current

II. False Etymology Fever Dream

The etymology of etymology is that
Late Middle English derived from old French, via Latin from Greek
a concept of “student of etymology”. From etumos; ‘truth’.

So, Etymology is the study of the true sense, or sense of truth.

Many common word origins remain a mystery.

i propose DOG comes from a gruff onomatopoeic bark

It has been one year since I lost my beloved souldog, Stanley.

I’ve read and wrote grief from every possible angle, attempting to box it into a knowable corner.

In one year, I have found only that grief is amorphous, endless. It evades proper definition.

The best writers thoughts on grief calm me. Quotes that resonate with me most are succinct.

Joan Didion, on losing her husband John to heart failure: “I remember thinking that I needed to discuss this with John.”

Charles Bukowski, on losing Jane: “I say anything that moved like that or knew my name could never die in the common verity of dying.”

What else can be done to understand grief but to acknowledge our inability to accept loss?

I wake every morning without him. But my hand still searches for his big block head. My heart leaps when I return home, expecting to see him waiting at the door.

I know one thing more about grief than what I knew a year ago:

Grief can never fade the joy of our brief time together.

Still.

I just want my dog.

They must look down at earth and mutter:
I would kill for some fast food. Envision themselves
as a child sitting in a parking lot in a rusty sedan.
Dipping fries ketchup and scanning the sky.

Safe on the ground, limits untested.
Dreams unrealized and unspoiled
by physics and time and the
mundane realities of employment.

Their minds must map midwest constellations.
Corn. Sonic Drive-Ins. Fading steel towns.
The memory of corn syrup clings to their throats.
Homesickness coating the tongue.

03-28-2019
Excalibur Nightmare (View from the Luxor)
a rifleman on the gaudy parapets
takes aim at a young buck
pops off a liver shot

the deer tries to run, but falls
viscous grape blood pours
onto the strip

04-02-2019
Vegas Haikus
the best part about
staying at the Excalibur
is not seeing it

lots of people here
look like vanilla ice, and
not in a good way

balding dudes wearing
red hot chili peppers tees
gaping at mountains

I.

it is tempting to become the husk
from which something better emerges

to simply blow away

existence demands too much
& rest is ever elusive

II.

it is difficult to heal deep wounds
choosing to nurture yourself

to take root and flourish

existence is pliant
& growth is often disruptive

stealing the fallout sign from an abandoned midwest grade school

having a plan is a form of hope, even when unrealistic
hiding under desks, hands protecting fragile skulls

we must find a way to thieve joy
from this false sense of security

Before he passed away, I painted a portrait of my dog as a saint.
With a gold leaf halo and a wreath of flowers.
After he passed, I placed an LED votive candle on a small shelf beneath it, always lit in his memory.

My daughter, just learning to speak, points to iconography and asks “Whassat?”
I told her, that’s Stanley. He was your brother, our protector, and my soul mate.

I did not know she’d been pointing to his wreath.
She calls all flowers by his name

—

Death is the memory of blooming.
The scent of fading petals.
Not the absence of flowers.

Always depicted as a dark figure
waiting to shepherd you home.
Never a void of aching desolation.

We speak of death as part of existence,
not as its antithesis. Contemplating
nothingness would be too fearful.

Humans likely started domesticating dogs around 30,000 years ago. The oldest known intentional domestic dog burial site is in Bonn-Oberkassel Germany, dated 14,200 years ago. A man, a woman, and two dogs rest together.

Ancient Greeks made mosaic memorials and touching poetic epitaphs for their dogs.

“Epitaph to a Dog” is inscribed on the memorial for Lord Byron’s Landseer Newfoundland, Boatswain. The eulogy preceding the poem was written by his friend John Hobhouse and is perfect in its simplicity.

When Lou restored some of my great-grandfather’s photos, two of his dogs are featured. A lab mix and an American bull terrier mix. I’ve included my favorite image below. The bull terrier posing near the Lorain Steel Plant rail-yard.

It has been half a year without sweet Stanley.

It is vital for me to tell you that he was my soulmate.

There is no other word for it. Domestication and symbiosis are too focused on the outcome of obedience and usefulness in a relationship.

We were simply meant to trust and love each other.

There is no timeline for my grief. I have the archeological and historical records to back me up on this.

The love of dogs, bred into my bones.