Some time ago, I asked LLaMA AI to write an essay about my poem The Perfect End. It responded with two texts—one casual and reflective, the other more academic. I later invited ChatGPT to join the conversation, and its response became the third voice in this strange little chorus.
Now, another AI enters the scene: Claude, developed by Anthropic. What follows is its take on the same poem—a remarkably calm, introspective reading that sits somewhere between philosophy and elegy.
I didn’t plan this as a series, but here we are: four minds, one poem, and a quiet disagreement about how to die properly.
Living at the Speed of the Alphabet: A Reflection on Maciej Modzelewski’s “The Perfect End”
There’s something deeply unsettling about Maciej Modzelewski’s “The Perfect End”—not in its subject matter, which circles around death and insignificance with almost casual familiarity, but in its tone of resigned acceptance. The poem reads like a conversation with oneself in a moment of brutal honesty, the kind that usually happens at 3 AM when defenses are down and the mind wanders to uncomfortable truths.
The opening question—”How convenient would it be to live in a cottage / next to a cemetery?”—immediately establishes this peculiar intimacy with mortality. But Modzelewski isn’t being morbid here; he’s being practical. The word “convenient” strips away any romantic notions about death, presenting it instead as a simple matter of proximity and efficiency. There’s dark humor in this pragmatism, as if planning one’s life around the inevitability of death is just good sense, like choosing a house near the grocery store.
What strikes me most powerfully is the phrase “wandering through life at the speed of the alphabet.” This image captures something profoundly melancholic about modern existence—the sense that we move through our days with methodical slowness, letter by letter, word by word, never quite achieving the rush of narrative momentum we imagine life should have. The alphabet is systematic but plodding; it gets you there eventually, but without passion or urgency. It’s the speed of someone going through the motions, checking boxes, following prescribed sequences.
The poem’s philosophical heart lies in its examination of inadequacy as a conscious choice. The speaker suggests that being “unfit for all those ghastly / conventionalities of days of yore” is actually a form of authenticity. There’s rebellion here, but it’s exhausted rebellion—the kind that has given up trying to impress anyone and has settled into the “simple pleasure of inadequacy.” This phrase is particularly striking because it suggests that failure, when embraced, can become its own form of contentment.
The imagery of the “bench plaque” as the “only befitting abridgement” of one’s existence is devastating in its modesty. Not a grand monument or even a proper headstone, but a small metal plaque on a park bench—the kind reserved for minor donors or beloved but unremarkable community members. Yet there’s dignity in this smallness, a rejection of grandiosity that feels more honest than pretension.
Emotionally, the poem operates in that strange territory between despair and acceptance. The speaker isn’t wallowing in self-pity; instead, there’s a kind of gentle self-mockery at work. The tone suggests someone who has made peace with their own ordinariness without becoming bitter about it. This isn’t the angry inadequacy of someone who believes they deserve better, but the quiet inadequacy of someone who has measured themselves against life and found the measurement less important than the measuring.
The single, long sentence structure mirrors the meandering quality of the life it describes. Just as the speaker wanders “at the speed of the alphabet,” the sentence itself wanders through its clauses and qualifications, never quite rushing toward its conclusion. The syntax embodies the very lethargy it describes, creating a reading experience that mimics the slow, deliberate pace of a life lived without urgency.
Perhaps most unsettling is how relatable this vision becomes upon reflection. In our achievement-oriented culture, there’s something almost subversive about Modzelewski’s suggestion that we might find peace in accepting our own mediocrity. The cottage by the cemetery becomes not just a dwelling but a metaphor for living fully present to our own mortality, without the frantic distractions that usually keep us from contemplating our finite nature.
The poem suggests that there might be wisdom in slowing down to “the speed of the alphabet”—in accepting that not every life needs to be a breathless adventure or a series of remarkable achievements. Sometimes the most honest thing we can do is acknowledge that we are small, temporary, and perhaps inadequate to the grand expectations we’ve inherited, and that this acknowledgment might be its own form of grace.
In the end, “The Perfect End” offers not despair but a strange kind of comfort. It suggests that there’s room in this world for quiet lives, for people who choose the bench plaque over the monument, for those who find their own way of being human without apology. The perfection in this ending isn’t dramatic or heroic—it’s simply honest, and perhaps that’s enough.
More words to ponder at maciejmodzelewski.com
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