With his ever-changing
insatiable curiosity for detail,
at one point Mr Honk wished
to explore clefs on the staff
and chord progressions,
but if he had learnt anything
from his last music teacher,
it’s that the most humble
might easily turn out to be
the malevolent one.
No wonder he played
Le Carnaval des animaux
as a ‘largo doloroso’
with a perfect smile.
More words to ponder at maciejmodzelewski.com
Once upon a time, as a young journalist in post-communist Poland, I regarded the BBC as the golden standard of journalistic independence and professionalism. So you can imagine my disappointment when, after emigrating to the UK and making Scotland my new home, I realised that nothing could be further from the truth—the emperor-is-naked moment being the 2014 Scottish independence referendum. For that reason, among others, I don’t have a telly, and I don’t need a TV licence. And yet that wretched body keeps nagging me over and over again to buy one. There’s no way in hell I’ll ever do that, so stop distracting me from reading Lytton Strachey by the window. Actually, here is a thought: why not invent a licence for the window view? But know that—though for some reason I am eagerly awaiting the linden tree to bloom, as if the scent of the blossoms could exorcise the exhaust fumes—I’d rather draw the curtains than pay you a penny. Of course, you could always make bookshelves taxable by length or, better yet, charge a word fee, though in that case, I’m not so concerned: I don’t talk much, and my writing is usually concise.
More words to ponder at maciejmodzelewski.com
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
I can’t stand waffling on
and have always appreciated the brevity of style,
but even for me a simple ‘I love you’ won’t cut it anymore—
I’ve learnt my lesson.
Perhaps next time just say
nothing,
whoever you are.
As a kid, did you ever dream of creating something
unwittingly complicated, like the theory of everything
or a box of matches to light the stake, or practical—
another Antikythera mechanism, for instance—
only to realise years later that no one expected you to
because apparently, nothing beats the nine-to-five
on the way to the golden age? And they may be right,
but you know what? At least you won’t be crying
over pyrite.
I was never in a hurry to learn how to play an old man—heck, being a responsible adult
was already a challenge—because I always had plenty of time to do so, or so I thought,
until the day I woke up and realised with horror that the scarecrow was already on the horizon.
I wonder if that’s why they call it the golden birthday, except I have a sneaking suspicion
it’ll turn out to be made of pyrite.
When I was a boy, a drawing of red ants
walking along a Möbius strip caught my eye.
I thought their lives must be pretty boring
(not that mine had ever come close to even a clumsily sketched tesseract),
but I never imagined I could envy them, and yet here I was,
faced with the alternative—relentless pestering:
Get out; find someone; live a little!
Hell truly is paved with good intentions.
Whether I listen to the clatter of a typewriter or the crackle of sparks
in the fireplace, my voice remains feeble because, in a way, I’m still a child,
for there are things in old books I haven’t learnt and likely never will,
convinced that what’s left is to talk to myself—and even that out of habit
rather than necessity—while sitting in a dark room with the curtains drawn,
staring at a volume of Cavafy and a cup of cold redbush tea, wondering
why I am sad when children were supposed to be carefree, innocent
creatures of forgive and forget.
A random phrase from a poet, like an earworm—and not because I’ve read the poem,
but because I’ve seen the despair—makes me realise that ‘nice’ wasn’t all that good;
in fact, it wasn’t good at all, and yet I still remember you asking if it was enough for me
to read one book, listen to one song, fall for one person, or at least pretend to, and so on,
in order to satisfy what for you hardly constituted seeking to live one’s life. Perhaps
that’s why you took the bus one morning to wherever the driver promised to take you.
hidden pilcrow 