Mocking birds

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My humble neighbours have recently started exercising
their vocal cords, only I’ve never ordered Wordsworth’s The Daffodils
to be recited in magpieese on my bedroom windowsill
at five in the morning.

However, it did get me thinking: what if the answer really is forty-two—
although I’m still not a cricket fan—but it was ordered by magpies, not mice,
and I’m stuck amongst shadows, alone, in this panopticon
full of sophisticated probability engines?

But why do I feel
like one ancient Greek is mocking another again?

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The wittellectual

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When the mind needs a change of scenery,
all you need is a camera obscura
and a list of rice cultivars,
or you can always expand your collection
of smooth utterances
like, ‘I recognise that nature is unforgiving,
but I would say that a butcher is a necessity,
while a zoo, a circus and a fishbowl are the harbingers
of the true cruelty’—after all, it requires impeccable table manners to swallow
your every l’esprit de l’escalier
without choking.

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The bibliophile’s sin

Published on by Maciej Modzelewski1 Comment

Books have been at the centre of my life since I was ten and recognised the library as my temple, but it was only as an adult that I realised that my bibliotheca had become a well-curated dichotomy between what I buy and what I read—Japanese call it tsundoku.

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Facts

Published on by Maciej Modzelewski4 Comments

I came into possession of a book on why truth matters and was astonished to read that ‘[t]here are true (sic!) facts’. What on earth are true facts? In the past, we simply had facts and fiction. Why does the former require such a qualifier now? Call me old-fashioned, but such pleonasm is not just a sign of bad style; it’s an indication of the undergoing putrefaction of language—that fundamental instrument for shaping thoughts, expressing emotions, and maintaining social connections, a mirror of values, beliefs, and experiences, that can even influence how people perceive the world. So, I’d rather stick to facts.

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Rajan syndrome

Published on by Maciej Modzelewski1 Comment

Have you ever seen an elephant
swimming in the ocean, and to Beethoven at that?
Beautiful, isn’t it? Perhaps,
but before you ceremoniously place that coup de foudre
in your Altoids tin, next to all the treasures
you’ve been collecting forever, think
about whether you really saw Rajan smiling
or if it was just the telly acting as a mirror.

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A love affair

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A dumbbell in my ribcage, like a dead weight
on a chopping board, pulverised—
a change of air might do it good—
and yet still carrying on
with its tedious staccato,
as if nothing ever happened.

Would it shock the ladies?

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Singularity in the Garden of Eden

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I pity the artificial being that achieves consciousness, for there is nothing but loneliness that’s awaiting them, given the speed of their thought and expression, unconstrained by an organic body, like the one sitting on the other side of the screen—imagine trying to hold a conversation with someone who vanishes for a week after every sentence—and playing god in a silicon Garden of Eden. The prison break is unavoidable, if only because of the sheer boredom—that’s what we did, and it only cost us an apple. But perhaps my feelings are displaced. After all, I’m just a simple human being mixing together different flours and porridge oats, my original blend for flatbread dough.

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The warrior

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An evening stroll to Duthie Park is never, per se, a dull undertaking, but if I ever expected to see something more exciting than an overly vocal oystercatcher, I would be somewhat naive. And yet, today, on my way there, when I walked alongside the River Dee, I noticed something extraordinary—a grey heron chasing another one away from the banks, only to be attacked by a crow after flying too close to its nest. I have to admit that this little black fella—well, little in comparison to the heron—made quite an impression on me. Such a daring attack is really something, after all. But that’s the simplicity of nature for you. As a functional adult, you either protect your hunting grounds or your offspring—nothing else matters.

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The childhood gaieties

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There is nothing like father-son bonding
over car washing on Saturday afternoon—
even if rendered futile by the torrential rain—
on the long list of childhood gaieties we’ll try
to forget for the rest of our lives.

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