all the trinkets of the day
There are many orbs and sceptres,
but none can rival a doppelstöckiges Schüleretui
sent by Grandma from West Germany
for her poor little Kaziu in communist Poland
that made his classmates gasp in awe.
Perhaps that is why I remain unconcerned
about the latest iWhatever.
More words to ponder at maciejmodzelewski.com
Fair fa’ your honest, sonsie face,
Great Chieftain o’ the Puddin-race!
— Robert Burns
What if my life is as poetic
as IgA autoantibodies against transglutaminase
that wreak havoc on my body
every time I reach for a slice of haggis
with my Sunday neeps and tatties?
I guess I’ll stick with the French
ragout.
More words to ponder at maciejmodzelewski.com
i. the renascence
!
,
(!),
…
ii. floruit
, ;
:
, —
—
“ !!! ”.
, [!]
.
iii. humdrum
,
,
,
.
iv. the senescence
…
.
If you step out of formal calculus
into your own bedchamber,
there are no proofs, only presumptions—
subject to circumstantial evidence—
and algorithm-induced silence of the granary,
where you savour that quaint blend
of Demotic and Katharevousa in Cavafy,
never quite ready to acknowledge
your audience.
More words to ponder at maciejmodzelewski.com
if she is not exactly famous for thinking
that human beings suffer from a shortage of words,
why do i have to wade through a foreword, an introduction and a prologue
before i get to the first chapter?
is that the preliminary bureaucracy
of the human condition?
More words to ponder at maciejmodzelewski.com
If you were to author another life,
would you rather be John Doe
or Wulfric Shufflebotham?
Either way, neither would save you
from being sold as an enormous quantity
of quotidian reportage.
More words to ponder at maciejmodzelewski.com
You too believed in the heavens’ embroidered cloths
and that a bouquet of dandelions stains just your hands,
even if it’s already past midnight and your posh vocabulary
feels like a string quartet playing to the chomping down on a steak,
and the rough fabric is chafing your neck in order for you to amount
to more than the omission apostrophe in a shy ‘scuse me, please,
you will remember for the next four decades as the redhead with freckles
you’ve never had the chance to meet; just saw her once from a distance,
still too young to matter—a half-crown and a day off worth a stanza
or at least an enjambment.
More words to ponder at maciejmodzelewski.com
I went to Poundland the other day,
full of contraptions made in China,
and a thought struck me: if back in the day
a one-pound coin—called a sovereign—
had found its way into Tommy More’s pocket,
could he have bought a Ming celadon for mammy,
not just a hex key set for himself?
More words to ponder at maciejmodzelewski.com
I masturbate before going to sleep—
such a perfectly unremarkable statement,
and yet it would evoke a look of bewilderment,
embarrassment even, were I to say it outright,
unlike mentioning that I brush my teeth after every meal
or leisurely read The Diary of Samuel Pepys
at lunchtime.
More words to ponder at maciejmodzelewski.com
