Sometimes I question the old bloke in the mirror,
‘For how long do you plan to remain a mere victim
of adolescence?’ but he never responds,
so I’d like to ask my readers—all three of them,
but one is biased (myself), another stays silent
(an American poet with a good education),
and the last has been retrained into a daft office drone
(are the shareholders happy now, Mr Amodei?).
In the end, it all boils down to nothing much—
a sentiment, perhaps.
More words to ponder at maciejmodzelewski.com
He who has neither the courage to die nor the heart to live, who will neither resist nor fly, what can we do with him?
Essays, Michel de Montaigne
No one is born because they want to, yet
the unlettered pen pals teach you to believe
that a second-hand appreciation leaves nothing
but a bad aftertaste—an old man’s grudge
like the scent of snow or the answer
to the question ‘What’s north
of the North Pole?’
More words to ponder at maciejmodzelewski.com
‘Lasciate ogne speranza, voi ch’intrate’
Divina Commedia, Dante Alighieri
If only I were never born
sentient, like a piece of rock, a handful of soil,
a pebble at the bottom of a mountain stream,
or a speck of dust immune to the curse of life,
though perhaps even that would not be enough,
for the inscription over the gate actually reads:
to be.
