person Tim Kahl, one poem

Tim Kahl [http://www.timkahl.com] is the author of Possessing Yourself (CW Books, 2009), The Century of Travel (CW Books, 2012) and The String of Islands (Dink, 2015). His work has been published in Prairie Schooner, Drunken Boat, 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 is also editor of Clade Song [http://www.cladesong.com]. He is the vice president and events coordinator of The Sacramento Poetry Center. He also has a public installation in Sacramento {In Scarcity We Bare The Teeth}. He plays flutes, guitars, ukuleles, charangos and cavaquinhos. He currently teaches at California State University, Sacramento, where he sings lieder while walking on campus between classes.

~*~

The Child of God

Seven years of quick strides calm the morning session at the wanting gong
steam rises from the gutters and from farther down in the sadness

where the sentimental klutz has fallen off Mt. Tamalpais into anguish
his slacks at the bed’s edge just after the peeing that redeems him

he is the Child of God dislodged from the mud by a million tiny stones
the fine mesh of his great premise riding the angstroms of the waves of light

his flame become form remaining cushy in the mid-day world
but not bored by the blood coursing through an existentialist

he rehearses the Dublin kiss in the once world of melancholy
rides a blue bicycle from Copenhagen to autumn

he is not the birth of tolerance nor the middle manager of minds
he holds hands with the trudgers through a small hole in the age of clowns

intercepts the Sunday voodoo of the road gang at Motel 6
where the blotches of love stay awake and inching towards alive

it’s drinking time with the splintered Catholics and their liver problems
hello there Mephistopheles the ginger full of grace across a bright surprise

the son of a creator is not very good at inheriting political messes
so instead he beats a hamhock against a bucket and calls it dance music

he trained most of his life convincing others to give him things
the boy in him bends to a white wave of books and bursts into dead words

~*~