glare of the window.
Outside a bitten moon rode fast over a tableland of snow. Staring at the vast black
and silver nonworld moving
and not moving incomprehensibly past this dangling fragment of humans
he felt its indifference roar over
his brain box. An idea glazed along the edge of the box and whipped back
down into the canal behind the wings
and it was gone. A man moves through time. It means nothing except that,
like a harpoon, once thrown he will arrive.
Geryon leaned his forehead against the cold hard hum of the double glass and slept.
On the floor under his feet
Fodor’s Guide
lay open. THE GAUCHO ACQUIRED AN EXAGGERATED NOTION
OF MASTERY OVER
HIS OWN DESTINY FROM THE SIMPLE ACT OF RIDING ON HORSEBACK
WAY FAR ACROSS THE PLAIN .
XXVII. MITWELT
Click here for original version
There is no person without a world.
————
The red monster sat at a corner table of Café Mitwelt writing bits of Heidegger
on the postcards he’d bought.
Sie sind das was betreiben
there are many Germans in
Buenos Aires they are all
soccer players the weather
is lovely wish you were here
GERYON
he wrote to his brother now a sportscaster at a radio station on the mainland.
Over at the end of the bar
near the whiskey bottles Geryon saw a waiter speaking to another behind his hand.
He supposed they would
soon throw him out. Could they tell from the angle of his body, from the way
his hand moved that he was
writing German not Spanish? It was likely illegal. Geryon had been studying
German philosophy at college
for the past three years, the waiters doubtless knew this too. He shifted his upper
back muscles inside
the huge overcoat, tightening his wings and turned over another postcard.
Zum verlorenen Hören
There are many Germans
in Buenos Aires they are
all psychoanalysts the
weather is lovely wish you
were here
GERYON
he wrote to his philosophy professor. But now he noticed one of the waiters
coming towards him. A cold spray
of fear shot across his lungs. He rummaged inside himself for Spanish phrases.
Please do not call the police
—
what did Spanish sound like? he could not recall a single word of it.
German irregular verbs
were marching across his mind as the waiter drew up at his table and stood,
a brilliant white towel
draped on his forearm, leaning slightly towards Geryon.
Aufwarts abwarts
ruckwarts vorwarts auswarts einwarts
swam crazy circles around each other while Geryon watched the waiter extract
a coffee cup smoothly
from the debris of postcards covering the table and straighten his towel
as he asked in perfect English
Would the gentleman like another expresso?
but Geryon was already blundering
to his feet with the postcards
in one hand, coins dropping on the tablecloth and he went crashing out.
It was not the fear of ridicule,
to which everyday life as a winged red person had accommodated Geryon early in life,
but this blank desertion of his own mind
that threw him into despair. Perhaps he was mad. In the seventh grade he had done
a science project on this worry.
It was the year he began to wonder about the noise that colors make. Roses came
roaring across the garden at him.
He lay on his bed at night listening to the silver light of stars crashing against
the window screen. Most
of those he
Outside a bitten moon rode fast over a tableland of snow. Staring at the vast black
and silver nonworld moving
and not moving incomprehensibly past this dangling fragment of humans
he felt its indifference roar over
his brain box. An idea glazed along the edge of the box and whipped back
down into the canal behind the wings
and it was gone. A man moves through time. It means nothing except that,
like a harpoon, once thrown he will arrive.
Geryon leaned his forehead against the cold hard hum of the double glass and slept.
On the floor under his feet
Fodor’s Guide
lay open. THE GAUCHO ACQUIRED AN EXAGGERATED NOTION
OF MASTERY OVER
HIS OWN DESTINY FROM THE SIMPLE ACT OF RIDING ON HORSEBACK
WAY FAR ACROSS THE PLAIN .
XXVII. MITWELT
Click here for original version
There is no person without a world.
————
The red monster sat at a corner table of Café Mitwelt writing bits of Heidegger
on the postcards he’d bought.
Sie sind das was betreiben
there are many Germans in
Buenos Aires they are all
soccer players the weather
is lovely wish you were here
GERYON
he wrote to his brother now a sportscaster at a radio station on the mainland.
Over at the end of the bar
near the whiskey bottles Geryon saw a waiter speaking to another behind his hand.
He supposed they would
soon throw him out. Could they tell from the angle of his body, from the way
his hand moved that he was
writing German not Spanish? It was likely illegal. Geryon had been studying
German philosophy at college
for the past three years, the waiters doubtless knew this too. He shifted his upper
back muscles inside
the huge overcoat, tightening his wings and turned over another postcard.
Zum verlorenen Hören
There are many Germans
in Buenos Aires they are
all psychoanalysts the
weather is lovely wish you
were here
GERYON
he wrote to his philosophy professor. But now he noticed one of the waiters
coming towards him. A cold spray
of fear shot across his lungs. He rummaged inside himself for Spanish phrases.
Please do not call the police
—
what did Spanish sound like? he could not recall a single word of it.
German irregular verbs
were marching across his mind as the waiter drew up at his table and stood,
a brilliant white towel
draped on his forearm, leaning slightly towards Geryon.
Aufwarts abwarts
ruckwarts vorwarts auswarts einwarts
swam crazy circles around each other while Geryon watched the waiter extract
a coffee cup smoothly
from the debris of postcards covering the table and straighten his towel
as he asked in perfect English
Would the gentleman like another expresso?
but Geryon was already blundering
to his feet with the postcards
in one hand, coins dropping on the tablecloth and he went crashing out.
It was not the fear of ridicule,
to which everyday life as a winged red person had accommodated Geryon early in life,
but this blank desertion of his own mind
that threw him into despair. Perhaps he was mad. In the seventh grade he had done
a science project on this worry.
It was the year he began to wonder about the noise that colors make. Roses came
roaring across the garden at him.
He lay on his bed at night listening to the silver light of stars crashing against
the window screen. Most
of those he
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