Captured on Polaroid shots,
we’re reselling green-screened déjà vus,
just to keep an old promise, ever afraid
that in the end we would have nothing
to say.
More words to ponder at maciejmodzelewski.com
Tag: Identity
No one is born
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
The tourist
I’m not a very interesting specimen,
a hostage to awkward silence
and unforeseen circumstances,
but we don’t invent autobiographies
to live up to them—
this is what guestbooks are for—
and I like the idea of ‘or something’,
and that the most intimate personal detail to reveal
is the taste of blood after biting my tongue.
Also, for someone who doesn’t drink,
I devote a lot of attention to potations
served as a triune chorus of gratitude,
which sounds rather appalling, yet it’s still better
than some unfortunate magnanimity of intention—
the mother of all exhaustion in both,
regardless of whether I prefer to be situated
in Beatrice’s basement or Virgil’s attic.
More words to ponder at maciejmodzelewski.com
An unalloyed inhumorous invention
What does it mean to have a sense of humour
in a world where even the freckled can’t tell jokes
about freckles? Like a conjurer’s missing hat,
internalising ‘the great stone face’ in recall
might just be the silent answer,
even if apocryphal.
More words to ponder at maciejmodzelewski.com
Mr Nothing’s inheritance
An inherited maisonette with a desk
and a somewhat belittled yet elaborate vocabulary
set the stage for Mr Honk to start a new life.
He never met that distant relative,
whose title turned out to be a misreading
of the initials of his first and middle names,
from the time when he refused to use capital letters—
but Mr Honk learnt that only from the headstone:
Meroz R. Nothing, né niczy.
No wonder Mr Nothing had never cried
out for an act of sincerity
and grief.
More words to ponder at maciejmodzelewski.com
A space filler
What was the last thing you remember
before you died? I was signing my book,
but I can’t recall if it was as MacCallus
or Modzelewski. It doesn’t matter—
they’re both equally ridiculous—
just like signing a book
I never published.
More words to ponder at maciejmodzelewski.com
Quiddit
A creature of the word—
doesn’t that have a nice ring to it?
Who would have thought that we’d turn
into creatures of paper?
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
A real writer
Tell me, are you a real writer? I mean, does anybody buy what you write or publish it or anything?
Breakfast at Tiffany’s (Blake Edwards, 1961)
I guess I’m not a real writer
since no one buys my tortuous words
and I haven’t published anything—
at least not in English—
unless you count the bottomless pit
of the world wide web. But let’s start small
and get yourself that box first.
More words to ponder at maciejmodzelewski.com
hidden pilcrow 