Other geographies
"The 'purity' of the gaze is not just difficult
but impossible to attain"
Walter Benjamin
Is it possible for you to live
a moment without the guidance
of cartography, wihtout a map
in your hands? Wanting to
wander, I leave the house,
as usual, and with a strange voice
and somewhat afraid, I embark on
vessels that don't fear instinct,
the purest attraction of the void
(journeys that offer the vastness
of the world). I open the door
and enter other geographies
and spread my wings and mutter
asides against faulty ancient words
that mistrust bodies I don't know
(now not very far from me).
I know the horizon doesn't exist.
It's a perfect backdrop. Like a burning red sun.
Like damp earth. Like an expression
on a face that doesn't ignore me
just yet. Desires smash
the impasse of your eyes, the logic
of cartography. If no map
exhausts reality then who creates it?
(Poem translated by D. Sam Abrams)
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