Convenience

Is it a matter of convenience
that I’d rather watch Finney in The Dresser
than visit His Majesty’s Theatre?
To tell the truth, the last time I saw the stage
was in my teens, and even then not in earnest—
just another item on the itinerary
of a school trip to the capital.

Is it a matter of convenience
that I take the evening stroll on a treadmill in my study
instead of in Duthie Park?
After all, it’s only a mile from home,
and I’ve long since learnt that the weather is of no consequence—
a mackintosh and a pair of wellies do the job,
not to mention an umbrella.

Is it a matter of convenience
that I chose growing into an urban hermit
over daring another Minute of Agreement?
Just weighing any streaming service subscription
against a solicitor’s fees—let alone sleepless nights
and your ruined liver—sounds quite convincing;
unless it’s a pretence.


More words to ponder at maciejmodzelewski.com

Washing-up

I don’t wash the dishes every day—
one might call it an old bachelor’s privilege;

after all, it’s a waste to boil a kettle for a single
spoon, knife, fork, glass, bowl, and plate—

a peculiar family of six enduring the extended stay
in the washing-up bowl as yet another exercise

in ‘back-on-the-market’ frugality.


More words to ponder at maciejmodzelewski.com

Passenger

I happened to myself
along with ‘your welcome,
my pleasure’—
my only invention—
and all the favourite English words,
like ‘certainly’, ‘perhaps’ and ‘indeed’,
etched into the dust
on the shelves in my study
after all the mature
and not-so-mature women—
for lack of male figures—
like a wah-wah mute
giving me vocal inflection
and a sudden urge to catch a ferry to Bergen
for an obol.


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Predicaments

My bellybutton is a hole,
which seems rather fitting
for a frugal existence—
the kind of life where living is optional—
marked by the predicament of becoming
on time, early in the morning,
when I still can’t decide
whom to blame for my falling
asleep after a paragraph of Arendt.


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Open book

After the storm, to find a shelter
amongst the restless natives
of l’esprit de l’escalier,
to put on a brave face
while running laps on a treadmill,
to stay preoccupied
with mingling,
to leave unpaid debts
so as to be remembered
as a fine fellow, courtesy of none…

It’s time to age, I presume,
even if I can’t always be salient—
I am not Lear or Godot,
not even Gantenbein—
and I’m no longer read as much.


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Washed-up romantic

I have never imagined playing Fantasie in F Minor
two-handed—and piano four-hands has kept a legion
of poets, writers, and artists (let alone solicitors)
well-fed—but I now know that whether I read
The Unbearable Lightness of Being or Season of Passion,
or De Divortio for that matter, the time passes still,
even if I can’t sleep a whole night and being called
‘homo sapiens’ triggers impostor syndrome.

At least writing in English suits me,
and I might be forgiven for abandoning my mother
tongue at the end of this writer’s retreat—
it costs nothing but an obol.


More words to ponder at maciejmodzelewski.com

The woman from Willendorf

I met the woman from Willendorf
as a teen in a history textbook
and during my first nocturnal emission,
marking the infertile oolite

floor tiles—though it wasn’t until I met her
incarnation a decade later
that my manhood went limp,
facing her proportions.

Cro-Magnons are remembered
for Venus figurines—
what if our best-known invention
will be fat wars?


More words to ponder at maciejmodzelewski.com

The destined

I once had a ring
mark on my finger and a tic—
even though the band of gold was long gone—
but now it’s a cup of redbush tea
and a bag of partially rehydrated pitted prunes
bathed in potassium sorbate
on a bachelor Friday evening with webtoons—
I guess I was always destined for happiness;
it’s just that life phrased it differently.


More words to ponder at maciejmodzelewski.com