The Quiet Savior
Each dog sees another’s asshole as hors d’oeuvre.
The marking of stop signs is not a show of status
nor defense of territory. It is a menu of the night before.
A dog doesn’t care what you think. It wants
to know what you ate. What have you brought him
today as he hides in a culvert? Let’s say you are there
just to make a rescue video. Trust is finally gained,
but something else is lost. It wafts away and gathers
in the creases of the void. It is pushed through the ring
of flesh. It is the quiet savior come to tell the tale of a meal.
These Conditions
I was born in a hospital. Did anybody come? No. I had to
fight my way out. There was nothing to hold on to. My grip
was fluid. A feeling of excitement grabbed me, yet made me uncertain.
Suddenly I found my voice and yelled, “God damn this place.
God damn this place.” People rushed in to soothe me,
but it was too late. Things got more serious after that.
I discovered there were many more thrown into these
same conditions. I was taught an absurd little tale
in school about what I should do with my penis, for the good
of the human race. So here I am trying to fuck you, man.
Fecal Phobia
It’s the expectation I resent. They insist I follow to scoop up
their lawn mines, like I was born and bred to handle shit.
But if I’m being honest, I most certainly was. They’ve got
that right. I don’t have any fecal phobia. It rides in my
pocket around the block encased in its Tupperware crypt.
It’s a burial at sea when we get home. One flush and away
they go. Sometimes I forget my pooperware and flashlight
when we go out at night. Duty tells me to blindly grope and fling it
in a bush, but civility presses me to leave it for the morning beat.
I hunt and hunt. Nothing. Some other dog has eaten it all up.
Pissant
Crawl, crawl, crawl up the slope of the toilet bowl, ant.
Then may you drown in white urine.
This is the way the male of this species takes to battle.
We are not very good at sending out scouts.
Nor do we swarm some gummy sludge on the ground.
We stand guard with words breathing the secret
of fire. We command the showers to spread
the faith. Believe me, you nest dwellers.
There is no more room in this house for castaways.
You settle or meet your maker going down the pipes.
©2023 Tim Kahl All rights reserved.
Tim Kahl [http://www.timkahl.com] [https://soundcloud.com/tnklbnny] is the author of Possessing Yourself (CW Books, 2009), The Century of Travel (CW Books, 2012) The String of Islands (Dink, 2015) Omnishambles (Bald Trickster, 2019) and California Sijo (Bald Trickster, 2022). His work has been published in many journals in the U.S and abroad. He is also an editor of Clade Song [http://www.cladesong.com]. He is events coordinator of The Sacramento Poetry Alliance. He builds flutes, plays them and plays guitars, ukuleles, charangos and cavaquinhos and touches on many other instruments from around the world. He currently teaches at California State University, Sacramento, where he sings lieder while walking on campus between classes.