all the trinkets of the day
Anger is not the offspring of circumstance;
it is born out of unsolicited existence
in a panopticon, where we are free
to role-play yesterday with a descant dawn—
for the sake of tomorrow that never quite happens
in the realm of phonetic empathy and burnt dinners
triggering the fire alarm in the tenement every other day.
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There are words, though distant,
that make me weep;
always;
and despite learning new ones,
short of stage directions—
as if coughing verbiage dyed in royal blue were my destiny—
I’m still unsure if the expression I intend to use
is sufficiently peculiar to pass
the ‘neither nor’ mark.
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I have never tasted onigiri
seasoned with furtive tears
nor horumon grilled as a will,
yet with my ageing heart
professionally demolished
by I Want To Eat Your Pancreas,
how can I still be surprised
that in kanji, even whining
might look like a rapture?
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Call me sentimental, but I miss door knockers,
Bakelite phones, and oak rocking chairs, let alone
tapping out a stanza on a Remington to the sound
of a valve radio tuned to the BBC Third Programme
in the hope of making a few guineas for another stack
of cloth-bound volumes, forever destined to gather
saudade.
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Sometimes I wonder: how should I measure time?
In years, days, minutes, or in steps, perhaps,
since time is all about contiguous expansion,
even if occasionally it slaps my hands to chastise
my deliberate impatience?
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I believe in words;
I’m just not a fan.
And I sleep too few hours—
just enough to realise ‘I don’t exist’
is a self-refuting idea that I’ve deserved
after half a century of procrastination
and warm saline gargling—still convinced
that time has tricked me,
leaving me uncomfortable behind
the greatest invention of all:
lined curtains.
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You said life is a full-time job.
Guess what—I’m retired.
Besides, I lack the necessary presence;
always have. After all, what would you expect
from a casual stroller on a treadmill
before mustering one final act
of solidarity?
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For about a year now, Magee’s Confessions of a Philosopher has been sitting on my nightstand, and I find myself wondering why I stopped reading roughly halfway through the penultimate chapter back then—though a more fitting question would be: why did I pick it up in the first place? What’s more, my shelves are lined with plenty of books that I’ve never even touched since I unearthed them in a secondhand bookshop—dust-gathering victims of my pretensions. Yet I remember a time when I used to devour books like madeleines on a porcelain plate (not literally, of course). I suppose, with age, I somewhat lost my sweet tooth. At least the dentist ought to be pleased.
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The docile grieve sotto voce, thrumming
the sorrows in the shade of a lime tree and drystane dyke.
After all, there’s nothing wrong with being a little awkward,
like a former semi-famous adolescent birdwatcher—
never reckless despite youth—now a lean curmudgeon,
collecting lanterns and astrolabes, having realised that
not every message needs to be delivered.
More words to ponder at maciejmodzelewski.com
hidden pilcrow 