Tag: Identity

I must have lost something

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The treasured few amongst the plastic army—the tin soldiers—that would forever be remembered as the toxic delight of my early youth went missing somewhere along the way to adulthood, and besides, I had outgrown my childhood toys, so for my twentysomething birthday, I bought myself a gas mask in an army surplus store, and now even that has disappeared somewhere during my excessive itineration. So I wonder if I have lost nothing but insignificant memorabilia or perhaps a fragment of my soul.

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An indecent thought

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It started as an innocent jest made by a friend to lighten the mood after my bitter remarks on the shrinking job market and the fact that poetry is all but a hobby. He created a page with information about the next Poet Laureate of the United Kingdom, who in 2029 will replace the current holder of the position, Simon Armitage—apparently it’s supposed to be me. And while I am a poet, my less than modest readership clearly indicates that I’m nowhere near being called a professional, which is surely one of the many requirements of the job. Besides, I’m not even British. And yet…

More words to ponder at maciejmodzelewski.com

To redeem us

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[…] the point of disagreement is not that I like his body better than he likes mine, but that he likes my mind less than I like his.
Lytton Strachey, from a letter to Leonard Woolf

I don’t believe in unicorns
and beautiful boys entering the picture mid-spring
to redeem love—
or whatever that spree in meadowland is called—
only to turn yet another string of random labels
that our days need to progress
from one misstep to the next.
Besides, I’m not well-adjusted—I wish I were,
or perhaps not; maybe it’s better the way I am—
unlike all the pre-highbrows walking down Charing Cross Road
on rainy Sundays; I’m still struggling with the difference
between pleasing you and joining your tribe.

More words to ponder at maciejmodzelewski.com

Escape artists

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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

A reflection

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My twin brother doesn’t look like me at all.
True, his face, the whole body for that matter, does resemble mine
down to the last detail, yet it would be hard to ignore the crack
running right through the middle of that vile countenance.
But at least his hand is dripping with the same shade of crimson.

More words to ponder at maciejmodzelewski.com

A penman

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As a discreet couch dweller,
keenly collecting calloused complements,
I have long found this protracted writers’ retreat—
or, as others call it, life—a rather daunting experience,
yet a certain sense of entitlement, albeit an off-putting one,
is to be expected in the heights of the Anthropocene,
with all those inflated egos and hopes
born amongst orphans in the making—
of which I am one.

More words to ponder at maciejmodzelewski.com

A denizen of grey

Published on by Maciej ModzelewskiLeave a comment

When does a tourist become a burgher,
and for a pedantic, yet unassuming gentleman
like myself, would it be an insurmountable transition?
After all, when I walk down Back Wynd,
no one can guess one way or the other,
and two decades in Granite City have instilled in me
a certain taste for grey, whether it be walls
or headstones.

The last meal

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Abandoned in no man’s land
between the living room and the kitchenette,
I read ‘Portrait of a Lady’ aloud
to the mealy-mouthed hum
of the microwave heating fish
and vegetables for my solitary dinner,
only to realise that it no longer mattered much
who I was before breakfast if no one was there
to tell me how to get through the supper.

That one little omission

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Thank you, Father, for the acoustics lessons
after midnight, when drunken screams carry best,
and for introducing me to the arcana of ballistics
using living room chairs as convenient projectiles,
and for the blunt realisation that a bare fist
could easily punch through a bathroom door,
and for all the belt-enforced ethics classes
correcting my adolescent lapses of judgement.
Only after all that, you never told me
why you brought me here.