Author: Maciej Modzelewski

Sometimes hope is just not enough.

The half-century mark

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It puts me in a rather peculiar position when—rather than, considering my age, courting a preposterous dowager—I yearn for the creamy scent of a perfectly ripe banana, the inconsequential beauty of unwitting lasciviousness—even if one exhibits something as mundanely inappropriate as picking one’s nose, so it is impossible not to call one a perfect scandal—a sun-drenched firmament of tiny freckles, and more. I can’t wait to see how ridiculous I will be in ten years when I’m sixty.

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Not quite family

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After spending the greater part of my adult life in Scotland, I’m starting to wonder who I really am, because—technically a Pole—not only am I not visiting the old country, but I have even stopped using my mother tongue, since there aren’t very many opportunities for it, and English has now become not only my spoken and written language, but I even think in it. To be frank, I no longer know or care what happens in Poland, and if it were not for the passport I have to renew every ten years, I doubt I would pay more attention to the place than I do to the Solomon Islands. However, I can’t really call myself Scottish, or British for that matter, as I have never really applied for citizenship, mainly because I would have to swear allegiance to the current monarch and his heirs and successors, a thought that burns my republican soul like hellfire. So, I live my little life as an emigrant—a state of mind akin to that of a poor distant relative living in a spare room—if I may allow myself such an analogy—a household member, but not quite family.

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There is still something

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From the shaded seclusion of a park bench, I pondered the wind’s indifference to flannels running between the wickets, almost equal to the blasé of the strollers sauntering along the paths around the lawn. This nonchalance stayed with me on the way back home, when I briefly kept up with the kayaking foursomes training on the Dee while listening to the song of wrens as they tried to be heard over the traffic. I guess, even if the nature of love has been hidden from me, there is still something to fill the void.

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I am who I am

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Each and every one of us likes to think that we are unique in our special way, but at the end of the day, there is always a Darwin or a Wallace who will find a pigeonhole for us in the taxonomy. If I had to characterise myself, it might be something like this:

  • Domain: Vocabulia (the users of words as opposed to Pugnia, who would rather use their fists)
  • Kingdom: Eloquentia (the effective users of language as opposed to Prolizi, that is, word wasters)
  • Phylum: Creatores (rather self-explanatory, as is the opposition: Interpretes)
  • Class: Scriptores (basically, writers vs. Oratores, that is, speakers)
  • Order: Poetae (poets, obviously, with Prosatores, prose writers, standing on the other side of the fence)
  • Family: Matutinae (who write in the morning, unlike Noctilucidae, who prefer the darkness of the night)
  • Tribe: Puristae (pure like the glass of water on their desk vs. Stimulantes, who can’t write a line without at least a sniff of coffee and cigarettes)
  • Genus: Hedonici (writing for eternal pleasure as opposed to Pecuniarii Pii, who write for money, but only from a pious source)
  • Species: Poeta Purus Hedonicus (I’d like to believe it’ll be me while I keep the copy of Stanley and Danko under my bed)

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I curse the day

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I curse the day I tasted bridal bread and salt.
I curse the day I met the future posy thrower.
I curse the day I let the dissolution slip through my fingers.
I curse the day I woke up in a stretcher.
I curse the day I was born,

most of all.

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Selfish genes

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I find green on blue rather disturbing, especially in their radiant, sun-drenched shades, which sounds a good deal sillier now, when I said it out loud. It’s like thinking you’ve married a woman and then, the day after the fair, realising that she’s a mother first and foremost and that she’ll turn you into a walking wallet once you’ve done your marital duty. But that’s evolution for you. Genes don’t give a tinker’s curse about your dreams and aspirations—their one goal is to replicate. If only there were a way to give them the middle finger once and for all.

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Simple living

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En réalité le satanisme a gagné. Satan s’est fait ingénu. Le mal se connaissant était moins affreux et plus près de la guérison que le mal s’ignorant. G. Sand inférieure à de Sade.
Notes sur «Les liaisons dangereuses», Charles Baudelaire

My neighbour leads a life of studious regularity
and doesn’t mind if George Sand is inferior to de Sade,
as long as he can perch on the scroll finial of the church across the street
to catch his breath between feedings of his chicks.
If only I were a magpie.

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Requiescat

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You know you are old
when your late-in-life children become adults
and you no longer draw the curtains
like the swords your forefathers drew
in all the new—for them, at least—lands.
Now you can simply find some well-deserved rest
in the inherited armchair
or tomb.

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