I have a cheesecake promised
five hundred miles away from here.
It’s not even a blown kiss—a jest, perhaps,
with sunglasses on (that’s London, after all),
or a prolegomenon to a fable
in fluent silence.
More words to ponder at maciejmodzelewski.com
Tag: intimacy
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
Artiste à domicile
Taking advantage of the ever-bright evenings
and equally ablaze early mornings,
Mr Honk tried to draught a civilised society
where masturbation, like potty training,
was just another hygiene practice, not at all so
curiously repulsive in a bourgeois gentilhomme
as to end up as a full-dress performance
in front of a mirror in a timid Lutyens.
More words to ponder at maciejmodzelewski.com
A caress
I’m trying to recall when
a caress turned into a doss—
a simple muscle memory feat—
only to dissipate like an ache
after double paracetamol
and the cold shoulder.
More words to ponder at maciejmodzelewski.com
The barren love
Romantic love is the desire for copulation,
embellished with the timid glances of a sonnet,
unless you are a eunuch who settles for lyricism
out of barren necessity.
Is that why I would rather have an empty bed
than empty shelves?
More words to ponder at maciejmodzelewski.com
The divide
I’ve only ever talked to myself, even if the words were directed at you,
and you wouldn’t hear my voice anyway, as you aren’t here—you never were,
now that I’ve realised that in order for you to appear before me,
I must first dramatise you, assign you a genre, and only then deconstruct you,
finger by finger and toe by toe, until there is nothing left but a bare midriff
with a navel scar, the only evidence that we were once one.
Hope
With the streets still scarred by the night’s sobbing, New Year’s Day wakes up
cold—unusually warm for January, though—and dark, with an overcast sky
and a looming hangover, not quite ready for the fake yoga and a full breakfast,
let alone the sight of Kevin Kline making love to Mary Elizabeth Mastrantonio.
I had forgotten what it was like to lie close to someone—the warmth, the scent,
the thrill of the brush against each newfound curve, the sound of rapid breathing
and barely suppressed moans—but I hoped that life would catch up eventually,
maybe in a year or two, and yet another one has just passed without any change.
Actually, the last statement is not entirely accurate. After all, I’m a year older
and that much less attractive.
New Year’s wishes
There’s no grandeur in the art
of fellatio without embracing the fact
that you’re gonna get hurt either way,
whether you swallow or spit
(which you probably wouldn’t think about
on New Year’s Eve, if ever),
if the recipient happens to be a theocon,
because he either accuses you of abortion
or cannibalism—bad jokes aside, let’s hope
the new year brings us a soixante-neuf
with more of that ‘Make love, not war’ vibe.
Another fallen angel
Instant love costs little—a cinema ticket
or, better even, a subscription to a streaming service;
and then you can watch her, for as long as you live,
in the farewell to the circus, wondering
whether time was a healer or a disease,
with her desire for love, expressed in a foreign language,
yet as familiar as the sight of a brush against her bare shoulder,
something you also once did, long ago, to someone
you can barely even remember.
hidden pilcrow 