What is it that keeps me attached
to the words? I live and learn
that Nature knows no sorrow—
maybe I shouldn’t either—
and has no use of ‘assuage’.
Perhaps the well-spoken have it easier,
but how would I know? After all, longing
is a wordless song.
More words to ponder at maciejmodzelewski.com
You said the living should not envy
the dead, and yet here we are, wondering
how many tomorrows today is worth,
trying to find comfort in the torment
or watching Grosse Pointe Blank together
because there’s always time to be
disappointed or ask what life in progress is.
But what if all that were nothing
but splitting hairs, only to realise
there was no hair to split to begin with?
More words to ponder at maciejmodzelewski.com
If life, instead of years, were measured by volumes,
what would mine be like—
reminiscent of À la recherche du temps perdu
or Homo faber. Ein Bericht?
More words to ponder at maciejmodzelewski.com
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 