methodic desperation
draws her down, down
down.
goodnight train
goodnight strangers
goodnight moon.

An ex-boyfriend once told me to “go eat a map” because my sense of direction left much to be desired… I admit that I have often shared his sentiments over my dyslexic inner-compass, to be someone who gravitates towards the wrong direction can be extremely inconvenient when you have to be somewhere as opposed to… lost.

That said, I now know beyond a doubt just how to BE perdida (lost).

As simple and commonsense-icle as it might seem, it is actually pretty challenging to be in a state of lost. How many of us deal with being lost on a daily basis? (“Define lost” – some of you conceptual folks might say…) But if we are speaking in terms of geographic location, being lost is not the norm. Most of us are exactly where we intended to be at any given moment.

Making me feel somewhat proud of the fact that I can characterize myself as an expert in being lost.

And, whilst it has its downsides, I tend to see it as a gift. How many streets would I have never had the pleasure of knowing had I stayed true to the right way? How many strangers would I have never been able to ask for help and share a small fleeting feeling of gratitude with? And how many moments of discovering some unknown and interesting place would I have missed out on had I eaten that map and never given myself the chance to simply be… lost.

Rest stop

Filtered black flies     come into focus at rest        on the wind burned glass
Legs peel from the seat     like a dry tongue      from the roof of mouth

I breath fumes     watch the morning     bloom over steaming lids
The sky blushes salmon     in the distance       repetition of sound

Doppler in the grass blades     rode edges burned to ash     blown back up into blueness
As the engine turns     linears of big rigs reel  start running     one hollow hum

I rode shotgun
No one spoke for miles

Passed fields of pale blown wheat
Telephone pole crosses

Fluxing wires
I can’t forget

The daydream of death
My still reflection

Dark sky eyes
Over the quick blue

And stratus clouds
Upon my window

Inside the wind

somewhere in the Andes...

From my latest post on The Millions, Adventures in Reviewing Elif Batuman’s The Possessed:

Far be it for me to skive off my part in what was now clearly a swiftly escalating literary collaboration. “You drive a hard bargain, Batuman,” I muttered to myself…

]]> http://seductivebanter.com/2011/09/03/the-batuman-saga-final-chapters/feed/ 0 ujalasehgal DSC02898_2 http://seductivebanter.com/2011/09/01/one-buddhists-theory/ http://seductivebanter.com/2011/09/01/one-buddhists-theory/#comments Fri, 02 Sep 2011 02:44:29 +0000 srtapimienta http://seductivebanter.com/?p=1069 ]]>

'ilusión' ( sketch 09.10 + photo of grass thru crack in Panama

We spoke often about faith, and healing; about health and nutrition; about traditions and cultural differences; about what is beautiful in Honduras, and beautiful in the United States; and about the ugliness of politics, and the sadness of poverty. In the end you realize the more curiosity you have about a person, the more curiousity she will develop about you, and you end up with a really satisfying kind of conversation. The kind of conversation that makes you notice all the details of the person in front of you, the particularities of her face, voice, scent. In the end you realize, how different yet similar she is to you. You realize, this is the answer to so much misunderstanding and grief. It happens during a quiet night when the lights have gone out from a distant storm and so you sit at a kitchen table, lit by a few candles, and you listen and talk and share what you have in your head. In that moment, you become a part of peace and your curiosity grows.

Wrought iron gateway in Buenos Aires, Argentina