The etymology of first love

You too believed in the heavens’ embroidered cloths
and that a bouquet of dandelions stains just your hands,
even if it’s already past midnight and your posh vocabulary
feels like a string quartet playing to the chomping down on a steak,
and the rough fabric is chafing your neck in order for you to amount
to more than the omission apostrophe in a shy ‘scuse me, please,
you will remember for the next four decades as the redhead with freckles
you’ve never had the chance to meet; just saw her once from a distance,
still too young to matter—a half-crown and a day off worth a stanza
or at least an enjambment.


More words to ponder at maciejmodzelewski.com

A casual stroller

You said life is a full-time job.
Guess what—I’m retired.
Besides, I lack the necessary presence;
always have. After all, what would you expect
from a casual stroller on a treadmill
before mustering one final act
of solidarity?


More words to ponder at maciejmodzelewski.com

Growing up

[…] for first, children and all other animals share in voluntary action but not in Moral Choice;
Nicomachean Ethics, Aristotle

If it weren’t for the distractions
we used to preoccupy our dishevelled pates,
we all would eventually come to the conclusion
that life is a pointless exercise not worth the hassle
and simply end it. After all, even a horse
in a gown and a mortarboard, pulling a load
of beliefs, conjectures, hypotheses and theories—
as fallible as they come—must one day join
the grownups in a leaden paradise,
inventing yet another version
of the hourglass.


More words to ponder at maciejmodzelewski.com