The Transcendental Friend | 2001-03

[ Truth ]

[ Flammable ]

[ Becomes Red ]

[ Dream of ]

[ Bone ]

[ Tooth ]

[ Matter ]

[ Nota Bene ]

This Diaphanous, Shredded Matter

... Cold and

In love with ideas. I saw a big
bird swoop down, Hitchcockian

cool, tangoing crusty eyed with
menace, through the blanket's

holes...

—Erik Sweet, from "My momentary visions"

* * *

from The Boy Who Could Fly
Mary Burger

III.

Between
a myth of origin
and a myth of destiny.

An American child.
Coca-Cola, Levi's, Mickey Mouse, and Daniel Boone.

Hostile, threatening, beloved, sublime. The ordinary
landscape of the child.

A few earthworms, robins, starlings, trees.
Buckskin, Bowie knife, mountain lion, grizzly.

How the ordinary helplessness
became a myth
and then a history.

A first trip on an airplane.
A mountain lion and an astronaut on tv.

Never tired, never sick, never injured, never
hungry, never scared. Never lonely, though
usually alone. It was a forested park
on a Sunday afternoon. It was
watching tv.

As if
he read by candlelight
after everyone had gone to sleep. As if
his father scolded, and his mother
murmured let him be.

A simple transformation
from rudeness to nobility. Inadvertent
martyrdom assuring immortality.

When lilacs last in the dooryard claimed
a farmhouse
a funeral
a country.

As if the rudderless floundering could be
as if the story could be
more than the artist
more than history
more than mythology

one hesitant kiss, then two, then three
is not a story

I wanted to write the story
that didn't happen to me

from rudeness to nobility
the story of everybody

I imagined dangers worse than I could endure

There is the featureless plane,
the vacant, featureless, silent tv

the incompatible union
of experiment and certainty

as if, when he says,
the job, the house, the car, the groceries, the fantasy,
the particular brand of fruit juice
the particular shows on tv

as if, when he says, in a few weeks, maybe, we'll
see

in a few months, in a year, maybe

Origin. Destiny.

The assassinations and the astronauts.
The Sunday evening Walt Disney.

A series of assassinations
marked my history.
A Kennedy.
A tragedy.
An Ohio University.
A conspiracy.
A demagoguery.

It was
painting the window frames white
watering petunias to make them bloom.

Protests
boycotts
blockades
marches
bombings
riots
arrests

I hated church, I liked boys' clothes
and I watched tv.

Boys were everywhere and boys were ordinary.
T-shirts, hi-tops, faded jeans.
Leather jackets, cigarettes, motorcycles, grease,
haircuts, pocket knives, model kits, airplanes,
silver bullet, white horse, black hat, gun.

This language a poor conveyance,
lurching, hesitating, throwing a wheel.

It was the way to get things done:
wear pants, and walk outside.

And trees, and mountains, and bears, and knives
did your bidding.

To believe you
have mass, occupy space,
and impact the bodies around you.

As if this diaphanous, shredded matter
were anything
like saying, he was there
and I was there, I
believe this, this
happened to me.