Trivia

Somewhere between sustenance
and boredom prevention,
those afflicted with life
must maintain extreme caution
when nurturing trivia,
since there is much at stake
between cellulite treatment
and a game of rummy or table tennis,

yet caught in a coat of my body—
an intentionally uncomfortable
occasional source of agitation—
I could always become sentimental,
which is rather frightening,
though not as much
as questionable considerations
in a world of adjectives
and noughts insisting on writing a memoir
or at least falling in love
while playing youth
despite knowing that I am
just an old man with prejudices,
and only if I get the spelling right.

But all I can do is to be incompetent
so as to preserve the character’s consistency.

If only I knew how to play the piano—
it would make it a hell of a lot easier
to annoy the neighbours.


More words to ponder at maciejmodzelewski.com

It costs a ream

Who do you call on a foggy morning
if you stumble upon a body: a coroner
or a stationer? But, while still puzzling,
Mr Honk’s swift entanglement in a ream
wouldn’t have posed such a dilemma
if only he’d decided whether he had
woken up next to a cold cadaver
or his oeuvre.


More words to ponder at maciejmodzelewski.com

Envy

I have always been—and still am—convinced that life is an unnecessary hassle to which we are subjected without our explicit consent. But since I dread it so much, one might say that simply ending it seems like a viable solution. The thing is, that would require either a great deal of knowledge or determination—neither of which I have—which shows just how much effort both nature and my fellow inmates put into keeping me in this panopticon. Oh, how I envy the paramecium or, better yet, a pebble on a riverbed.


More words to ponder at maciejmodzelewski.com

Escape artists

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.


More words to ponder at maciejmodzelewski.com