He’s most a runner who has won the race.
The Category, Lytton Strachey
It’s supposed to be May, yet with two degrees outside
and fifteen in my study, it feels like December. But who cares
about mismatched months when the years are also mixed up—
for now I’m stuck in nineteen-oh-five, mostly because it’s hard to be a person
when you’re reduced to a book of letters with a somewhat blurry picture
that was never intended for a cover.
More words to ponder at maciejmodzelewski.com
I have always wondered what haggis tastes like
because, despite living in Scotland for two decades,
I’ve never actually had the opportunity to try it,
and not for lack of desire, but due to dietary restrictions,
which would also apply to more foreign delicacies
like Yorkshire pudding (some Scots will appreciate the jest),
in toad in the hole in particular. Perhaps I’ll order it
for my last supper.
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After swallowing, with a light breakfast, a daily dose of pity
pills and ridicule syrup, you spend the whole morning trying to find comfort
in vague declarations fastened with unfamiliar words and sturdy punctuation
that presented a sordid little drama as a fare of martyrdom,
only to realise that once you confessed to hearing, in response, ‘I beg your pardon?’
and still kept your calm, as if your gravely misspelt urges had never been revealed,
there was nothing left but to ask: Do I avoid people because I’m afraid of falling for one
and that that would be one-sided and rather silly, all things considered,
or because irrelephantiasis might prove to be contagious?
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Born with the innate callus
of the name—
as if the difference
between an angel and a moth
were purely figurative—
we were destined
to buy the madman’s dead geranium
as the tree of life.
No wonder we couldn’t stand
the hell of paradise.
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Just what is it that makes today’s homes so different, so appealing?
To be honest, I don’t know how to answer that, but I liked that unexpected pop
from the first moment I set foot in the drizzle-drenched kingdom of politeness
and understatement (your own words). I figured I’d puzzle up a few words—
since the dough was still rising under the cloth—as I always do, but the arrivals
at Granite City’s airport have turned the sourdough bread into a rowie.
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If someone I know
that they live in my time zone
reads my latest poem at two in the morning
(likes have a timestamp, profiles geolocation),
I can’t help but worry if they are okay.
Maybe they’re suffering from insomnia
or a broken heart, or they’re trying to forget
the pain in a hospital bed,
or they just grabbed their phone
on the way to the bathroom,
but whatever it is, I
am worried.
How selfish of me.
More words to ponder at maciejmodzelewski.com
If you fight fire with fire, you leave nothing behind
but ashes—sometimes, though, that’s the only way,
like when you are trying to put out a forest inferno
or it turns out the innamorati were wearing masks
after all, and now that they have fallen off,
the courtly pas and swivel turn into a scuffle
on the courtroom floor.
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my plan is unlimited
calls and texts only my contacts are empty
for now at least that’s what i said all those years ago
when i bought that mobile
remorse
More words to ponder at maciejmodzelewski.com
My twin brother doesn’t look like me at all.
True, his face, the whole body for that matter, does resemble mine
down to the last detail, yet it would be hard to ignore the crack
running right through the middle of that vile countenance.
But at least his hand is dripping with the same shade of crimson.
More words to ponder at maciejmodzelewski.com
hidden pilcrow 