Category: poetry

Here are my poems in English and Polish.

An emigrant must be a fool

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I left my country to spare my kids the national hysteria of the Messiah of Nations,
but in the end, they are even more confused than if they were raised there.
Perhaps that’s exactly what was to be expected. After all, even I’m no longer sure
who I am since two decades have severed all ties except one: my passport.
However, my new home doesn’t exactly make it easy to find a new identity.
If anything, I would call myself a Scot rather than a Brit, but that hardly matters,
given that I refuse to swear an oath to the king. So, I settled for an emigrant,
with all the obligations but without the most fundamental right—the right to vote.
This is the price I pay for staying true to my principles, although some might say
I’m just a stubborn fool.

In that magical moment just before bed

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So many have said so much so far that, in all likelihood, I can only add a thing
or two at most to the canon—though this bromide is unlikely to cut it—yet I still
meticulously compose a stanza every day, as if it were supposed to fix something.

Who knows, maybe I should try my hand at songwriting, or perhaps epitaphs
could become my thing. After all, most of us are more likely to listen to the radio
or visit loved ones at a graveyard than, even in that magical moment just before bed,

reach for a book of poetry.

Spiritual maladies

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In the scorch of August, sitting naked in a garden chair
dragged into my airy living room, I read Carlyle’s notes
on the froth-eddies and sand-banks of the Mechanical Age
he was born into and wonder whether a simple urban hermit
from the Age of Imagination like myself should still repeat
after him that our spiritual maladies are but of Opinion.
Although we may be fettered by chains of our own forging,
which we ourselves could also rend asunder, the sheer number
of those who have fallen victim to their corrupting weight
hardly makes the latter plausible. But what would I know
beyond my sweaty, naked body?

Collateral damage

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It starts with skipping the shower on the odd occasion.
After a while, showering every other day becomes a habit.
Then you realise that washing the whole body once a week
was actually good enough for your forefathers, but since you
are not religious, you end up settling for doing it fortnightly.
You even come up with quite an elaborate explanation
—something about environmental awareness and the like.
But, I guess, personal hygiene is not the worst casualty
of the lockdown-induced remote work, online shopping,
and heartbreak.

There’s no way this is the fever

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So, here I am—one moment I’m soaking wet
under the sun hidden behind the dark clouds
that just so happened to have decided to sweat cats and dogs all day long,
listening to old men, older than me, who sing
about past loves and how regrets are part of life,
trying to reach the long-forgotten tranquillity
of a bookworm—and the next thing I know, your eyes are wide open
and your girlish face is lit up with impish glee
because of something I said.

There’s no way this is the fever from that old sonnet,
because like chickenpox or measles, once we had it,
we were supposed to gain lifelong immunity—or so I thought—and yet,
all the symptoms suggest otherwise, which makes me wonder
if there is any point in agonising over the physician
leaving me to my own devices if nothing ever changes
regardless of whether I follow his prescriptions or not.
After all, I’m about to be called an old man myself,
old enough to sing my own songs.

Englishwoman in New York

Published on by Maciej Modzelewski9 Comments

Have you ever heard of an Englishman in New York? I have
met a perfectly extraordinary Englishwoman in New York
—a girl, really—named Carrie Pilby, and she was a character
of fiction, nevertheless as real as any of the women in my life
nowadays. Now I have a good excuse not to meet anyone else
until the next cosy film night on the sofa.

Black and white

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Why are black-and-white pictures called black-and-white pictures
when there is so much colour in them—so much unadulterated life?
At least the gown and tuxedo look better in them, and the wrinkles
become refined, as do the tears. And the trifling details fade away,
like the ones we hoped to capture in them.

A miracle

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If I told you that life is a miracle
of a chore—and a tedious one,
to be frank—would you rather believe me
or put your trust in all those who preach
that it is an actual miracle in its own right?
For if the latter, what a pathetic miracle is it
that has compelled us to say that drama is life
with the dull bits cut out? Isn’t that right, Alfred?
After all, two measly hours don’t compare
to the decades we have to endure. Yet, I recognise
that there is a miracle in life—that despite everything,
we still somehow manage to pull it off.