My bellybutton is a hole,
which seems rather fitting
for a frugal existence—
the kind of life where living is optional—
marked by the predicament of becoming
on time, early in the morning,
when I still can’t decide
whom to blame for my falling
asleep after a paragraph of Arendt.
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After the storm, to find a shelter
amongst the restless natives
of l’esprit de l’escalier,
to put on a brave face
while running laps on a treadmill,
to stay preoccupied
with mingling,
to leave unpaid debts
so as to be remembered
as a fine fellow, courtesy of none…
It’s time to age, I presume,
even if I can’t always be salient—
I am not Lear or Godot,
not even Gantenbein—
and I’m no longer read as much.
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I have never imagined playing Fantasie in F Minor
two-handed—and piano four-hands has kept a legion
of poets, writers, and artists (let alone solicitors)
well-fed—but I now know that whether I read
The Unbearable Lightness of Being or Season of Passion,
or De Divortio for that matter, the time passes still,
even if I can’t sleep a whole night and being called
‘homo sapiens’ triggers impostor syndrome.
At least writing in English suits me,
and I might be forgiven for abandoning my mother
tongue at the end of this writer’s retreat—
it costs nothing but an obol.
More words to ponder at maciejmodzelewski.com
Going to bed with Hesperus
only to wake up as Eosphorus’ leman—
while the speakers cry with a Russian accent,
‘I’m the hero of the story’—I can’t help
but think of the mislabelled celestial
bodies of bygone lust.
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I met the woman from Willendorf
as a teen in a history textbook
and during my first nocturnal emission,
marking the infertile oolite
floor tiles—though it wasn’t until I met her
incarnation a decade later
that my manhood went limp,
facing her proportions.
Cro-Magnons are remembered
for Venus figurines—
what if our best-known invention
will be fat wars?
More words to ponder at maciejmodzelewski.com
I once had a ring
mark on my finger and a tic—
even though the band of gold was long gone—
but now it’s a cup of redbush tea
and a bag of partially rehydrated pitted prunes
bathed in potassium sorbate
on a bachelor Friday evening with webtoons—
I guess I was always destined for happiness;
it’s just that life phrased it differently.
More words to ponder at maciejmodzelewski.com
If you have studied statistics, you know
that there is a fifty-fifty chance
of landing heads or tails,
except I never toss a Tyrian shekel,
like a square of dark chocolate,
offered for every confession of love
we made when tired of playing
a perpetual opening night
watched by no one
but a souffleur in front of a telly
after another shot at Der Tod des Vergil
to assure you that the latest fixation
with venereabilia is nothing more than an expression
of intellectual eccentricity—
my legacy
that includes a three-bank typewriter,
a few sheets of genkō yōshi,
and a plumbago stick.
More words to ponder at maciejmodzelewski.com
When I think about your vulva
between five and six in the morning,
it’s nothing personal since ‘you’ is generic,
and ‘vulva’ is simply a noun—
no different from ‘elbow’ or ‘eyelid’—
just another item in the formal vocabulary,
and more relevant than your vagina,
which I’ve never seen, as I’m not a gynaecologist
but a poet looking for an adequate response
to a misnomer.
More words to ponder at maciejmodzelewski.com
If masturbation turns into a weekly chore
and yet you find yourself more concerned
with the grammatical adequacy of the sentiment
than its implications—where does it leave you?
After all, there was a time an afternoon nap
might have been just an inclination,
but now it’s a must.
More words to ponder at maciejmodzelewski.com
