Tag: nostalgia

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.

More words to ponder at maciejmodzelewski.com

The ignoble writing implement

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Why does the word ‘computer’
not have the noble ring of a ‘fountain pen’?
Even a ‘typewriter’ sounds better
than the name of the Difference Engine’s progeny,
though I could always say that I wrote this verse
on my PC (yuck!) or a desktop.

I wonder if the poet had the same problem
when quills had gone out of use.

More words to ponder at maciejmodzelewski.com

The mismatched

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He’s most a runner who has won the race.
The Category, Lytton Strachey

It’s supposed to be May, yet with two degrees outside
and fifteen in my study, it feels like December. But who cares
about mismatched months when the years are also mixed up—
for now I’m stuck in nineteen-oh-five, mostly because it’s hard to be a person
when you’re reduced to a book of letters with a somewhat blurry picture
that was never intended for a cover.

More words to ponder at maciejmodzelewski.com

The swan of first love

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All of a sudden I recalled my first crush, Jun
the Swan, who made my boyish heart skip a beat
every Thursday morning—no other love was as pure
once I had savoured the scent of a body.

More words to ponder at maciejmodzelewski.com

Like the Kilbrittain Whale

Published on by Maciej ModzelewskiLeave a comment

Looking at the old ray diagrams of a telescope
reminded me of the one I once bought
as a birthday present for someone
but missed the opportunity to give to them,
and now it sits under my desk—
like the Kilbrittain Whale—
next to the document shredder, collecting dust
and the occasional pang of guilt,
just like all the languages I’ve ever learnt,
or rather tried to, only to end up skimming a tad of Polish
and later getting a smattering of English—
one being my mother tongue, the other transplanted—
and in the end, settling for memorising full names,
like T.S. Eliot’s and GLS’s, but even that didn’t go too well
with my memory wrinkling along with my physiognomy.

Bits and bobs

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I still can’t believe I like dark chocolate,
and pesto, and a few other things I once found unbearable.
Does that mean I’m capable of changing,
or that I just don’t care anymore?
But it can’t possibly be the latter,
because when I think about it,
there are more bits and bobs I’ve learnt
not to like over the years;
case in point, an indentation on my ring finger
is long gone, but it still hurts
I had it in the first place.

The truth

Published on by Maciej ModzelewskiLeave a comment

When I visited my home country, I ran into an old crush
that I hadn’t seen in decades, and I wanted to say hello,
but then I got scared of playing the catch-up game,
and she just passed me by without a trace of recognition,
so either I had changed that much since our school days,
or I’d always been only a cypher to her—most likely both.

I’ve never really been sentimental. I avoid school reunions;
I don’t keep in touch with old classmates—living abroad
doesn’t help—so the old ardours should be a song of the past
as well, and yet when our eyes met for a brief moment
and I saw the weariness in hers, my first instinct was
to pull her close and whisper, ‘Everything’s going to be okay,’
but of course my innate cowardice got the better of me.
Either way, the unfamiliarity of my face aside, I sincerely doubt
she would appreciate that old lie, or at least that’s the truth
the cynic in me clings to.