When did I become an amanuensis
of my own? If only I were a Boomer,
I’d have charged a few shillings per page
back in the day—now it’s all self-
procrastination for a bowl of noodles.
More words to ponder at maciejmodzelewski.com
Tag: Alienation
The innocents
Like an indiscriminate drop cap,
Mr Honk sat within the margins
and ran deep into the paragraph,
for he had not been born to fit
into any of the respectable social roles—
nor was he ever meant to—
doomed to disappoint even if he tried,
yet he felt a smidgen of nostalgia
at discovering that he was not alone
in finding most novels to be
impossibly futile affairs.
More words to ponder at maciejmodzelewski.com
Artificially induced
Being alive by proxy—
subject to semantic bleaching—
is the one particular burden that is mine
and mine alone, yet
since I mostly read old men
with long beards and moustaches,
I don’t feel particularly overwhelmed.
That is, until I’m singed by the flare
of tone contagion, which leaves no choice
but to close the book and get out
in the real world.
More words to ponder at maciejmodzelewski.com
The mismatched
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
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
Solitude
We are suffering not from the decay of theological beliefs but from the loss of solitude.
Bertrand Russell, ‘On Being Modern-Minded’
‘Life is an abomination, a conscious one more so’
is the mantra that wakes me up every morning,
but once that’s done, it’s time for a yoga session
while the flatbread bakes for a simple breakfast,
and after the body’s needs have been met,
intellectual nourishment is a matter of reflex,
with the occasional break for another meal or excretion
before finally returning to bed at the end of the day.
And while that’s all fine and dandy, sometimes it’s nice to have someone
remind you to breathe.
hidden pilcrow 