Author: Maciej Modzelewski

Sometimes hope is just not enough.

The humble life of mine

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I’ve come to the conclusion that slowly dying is too demanding a job
to make room for other pointless pursuits, like memorising new words
or ever-so-slightly changing faces, which of course leaves me no choice
but to outsource all the embellishments that are commonly considered
life’s essential ingredients—though it’s not as if I don’t appreciate
an occasional reminder that the regrets we draw from the callow years
are not what stimulate our due desires—and embrace the humble life
of an urban hermit with somewhat perverted interest in death.

The cursed

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‘Lasciate ogne speranza, voi ch’intrate’
Divina Commedia, Dante Alighieri

If only I were never born
sentient, like a piece of rock, a handful of soil,
a pebble at the bottom of a mountain stream,
or a speck of dust immune to the curse of life,
though perhaps even that would not be enough,
for the inscription over the gate actually reads:
to be.

Commiserations

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I learnt a new word: commiserations.
Ironically, it was used in response to the news
of someone’s engagement,
but frankly, having tried wedlock myself,
I understand the sentiment.
However you slice it, marriage has always been
and always will be a soul-crushing trap
that complements the cruelty
of birth.

Why am I sad?

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Whether I listen to the clatter of a typewriter or the crackle of sparks
in the fireplace, my voice remains feeble because, in a way, I’m still a child,
for there are things in old books I haven’t learnt and likely never will,
convinced that what’s left is to talk to myself—and even that out of habit
rather than necessity—while sitting in a dark room with the curtains drawn,
staring at a volume of Cavafy and a cup of cold redbush tea, wondering
why I am sad when children were supposed to be carefree, innocent
creatures of forgive and forget.

As the clock breaks

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A clock can’t outlive time—at best, it can tell
that your autumn holidays are an hour longer
after you’ve decided you’re just an unassuming tourist
wandering the soggy back alleys full of perplexing words
in search of the greatest passage—but as it breaks,
you notice it’s not just its hands that stop.

One word

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Whether I close my eyes or the curtains, nothing makes me so bold as to strip
the act of performed nightly routines of their supposed innocence,
and yet here and there I catch a flicker of doubt creeping onto the page,
occasionally jamming the typewriter or spilling out in an inkblot
as if it were the revenge of a worn-out fountain pen I was given when I came of age.

At least the pencil maintains a semblance of decency—which is a little unsettling
since it’s not my favourite writing implement—so I wonder if it might help me
retrieve from the rubble I’ve hoarded over the years the one word I need most.
Perhaps then I will learn what I’ve been looking for so desperately all this time,
even if it’s only enough for a brass plaque on the backrest of a park bench.

A day never lasts past midnight

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A day never lasts past midnight,
and sure, you can always say a new one has just arrived,
but what if the previous one didn’t have a chance to toll its end,
neither moving forward nor melting away like a stuck celluloid frame,
and—though you might have bid it farewell by closing the curtains,
expecting nothing but a clean slate, even if a few occasional scratches
marked the coming morning—it turned into a galling tinnitus
amidst the cries of a peacock? Would you rather ignore it
or reveal its unseemly secrets?

I stay in the grey town

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A random phrase from a poet, like an earworm—and not because I’ve read the poem,
but because I’ve seen the despair—makes me realise that ‘nice’ wasn’t all that good;

in fact, it wasn’t good at all, and yet I still remember you asking if it was enough for me
to read one book, listen to one song, fall for one person, or at least pretend to, and so on,

in order to satisfy what for you hardly constituted seeking to live one’s life. Perhaps
that’s why you took the bus one morning to wherever the driver promised to take you.