Tim Kahl

Catching the Juice

A friend of mine from college leads a video tour
through a billionaire’s apartment in New York City.
She crosses her legs and offers a Namasté in
the zen solarium, wryly models the salamander and
contends this is the way a billionaire makes grilled cheese.
It’s too delicious. I can’t resist a comment,
but when I label it “real estate porn”, the comment
is removed — inappropriate, unacceptable.
Not quite shamed or even humbled, I gather
my wits to fully understand the obscenity:
the ten foot rain shower nozzle in the ceiling,
the hand-carved marble slab for a tub,
the oversized foot pool on the roof.
The man who owns it made his fortune in
chew bones, aquarium ornaments and
flea shampoo before he mastered the art
of the developer’s deal. His lifestyle is
described as fully furnished, but I’ve been
in kitchens where none of the chairs match,
where the glasses crack, but they’re still
run out among a comic array of utensils --
to catch the juice. Just like I should be
right now, catching the juice, pulp and all,
from those who’ve been freshly squeezed.
But it’s too damned hilarious. I enjoy my
little luxury of the theater of the absurd.
I make my ballsy comments that offend
the unapologetically ambitious.
That’s me over there standing in line for
a quick glimpse of the new shipment of
canned beans, laughing my ass off as I finally
figure out things end so badly for
the antelope because the lion
doesn’t get the goddamned joke.

---

John Locke's Lion Dance

When the dancers enter a village,
they are supposed to pay their respects
to the ancestors. So should they bow to
the lowly rodent as the first mammal?
Or hearken back further in the fossil
record to our origin with the trees
so that we may dance
to the song of the seeds?

John Locke, I do not know if I am
an empty vessel, a blank slate for blaming
the power of the drum to call us
together in accordance with the regal
moods of the lion. I only know
I have been brought before you for
mimicking cats, for catching mice and
birds and dispatching their life, liberty,
and pursuit of happiness to the scrap heap
where the wills of animals wither.

But here come the acrobats to
charm us with their stunts,
their bursts and leaps in the streets,
their displays of strength
to chase away the silly Buddha.
See how the head shakes furiously,
determined to bring the crowd
to its feet and cheer the reach
for the red envelope that will be
brought back to the troupe.

John Locke, is your liberty the ability
to do what you want to others,
to make them taste the sweetness
of obedience? I am convinced
you must still be curious about how
your ancestors deferred to majesty,
their wide-eyed witness to
the earth dynasty, their allegiance
to all that is unseen, their admiration
for the old songs of the cycads
about the future of the chimpanzees.

 
 
--
Tim Kahl is the author of Possessing Yourself (CW Books 2009) and The Century of Travel (CW Books, 2012). His work has been published in Prairie Schooner, Mad Hatters’ Review, Indiana Review, Metazen, Ninth Letter, Sein und Werden, Notre Dame Review, The Really System, Konundrum Engine Literary Magazine, The Journal, The Volta, Parthenon West Review, Caliban, and many other journals in the U.S. He appears as Victor Schnickelfritz at the poetry and poetics blog The Great American Pinup and the poetry video blog Linebreak Studios. He is also editor of Bald Trickster Press and Clade Song. He is the vice president and events coordinator of The Sacramento Poetry Center.