Tag: Satire

I am who I am

Published on by Maciej Modzelewski5 Comments

Each and every one of us likes to think that we are unique in our special way, but at the end of the day, there is always a Darwin or a Wallace who will find a pigeonhole for us in the taxonomy. If I had to characterise myself, it might be something like this:

  • Domain: Vocabulia (the users of words as opposed to Pugnia, who would rather use their fists)
  • Kingdom: Eloquentia (the effective users of language as opposed to Prolizi, that is, word wasters)
  • Phylum: Creatores (rather self-explanatory, as is the opposition: Interpretes)
  • Class: Scriptores (basically, writers vs. Oratores, that is, speakers)
  • Order: Poetae (poets, obviously, with Prosatores, prose writers, standing on the other side of the fence)
  • Family: Matutinae (who write in the morning, unlike Noctilucidae, who prefer the darkness of the night)
  • Tribe: Puristae (pure like the glass of water on their desk vs. Stimulantes, who can’t write a line without at least a sniff of coffee and cigarettes)
  • Genus: Hedonici (writing for eternal pleasure as opposed to Pecuniarii Pii, who write for money, but only from a pious source)
  • Species: Poeta Purus Hedonicus (I’d like to believe it’ll be me while I keep the copy of Stanley and Danko under my bed)

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Selfish genes

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I find green on blue rather disturbing, especially in their radiant, sun-drenched shades, which sounds a good deal sillier now, when I said it out loud. It’s like thinking you’ve married a woman and then, the day after the fair, realising that she’s a mother first and foremost and that she’ll turn you into a walking wallet once you’ve done your marital duty. But that’s evolution for you. Genes don’t give a tinker’s curse about your dreams and aspirations—their one goal is to replicate. If only there were a way to give them the middle finger once and for all.

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Simple living

Published on by Maciej Modzelewski1 Comment

En réalité le satanisme a gagné. Satan s’est fait ingénu. Le mal se connaissant était moins affreux et plus près de la guérison que le mal s’ignorant. G. Sand inférieure à de Sade.
Notes sur «Les liaisons dangereuses», Charles Baudelaire

My neighbour leads a life of studious regularity
and doesn’t mind if George Sand is inferior to de Sade,
as long as he can perch on the scroll finial of the church across the street
to catch his breath between feedings of his chicks.
If only I were a magpie.

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The vows

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Dear Strachey, while sharing, at least in spirit, some of the paraphernalia of cultivation—you had Baudelaire; I have T.S. Eliot—if only I had known you then and shared your outlook on marriage to begin with, and if my admiration for your intellectual finesse had passed beyond the tantamount to witnessing polyorchidism under an ultrasound examination, I might not have stepped into that sanctimonious staple just to regret it dearly afterwards. But I met you late in my aimless peregrinations, so everything turned out the way it did, and all that remains is to share one piece of wisdom—don’t trust vows without a prenup.

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The horizons

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‘Travelling is a fraud,’ said Lytton Strachey, and all I can say to that is, ‘What a wonderful sentiment!’ For I would rather cultivate the apathy of prolonged departing in my study than placate the ever-ardent fellow sightseers. But that’s just me, so feel free to elevate your carbon footprint at every opportunity so that we can all enjoy the peak of the Anthropocene. As the French proverb goes, Les voyages forment la jeunesse—and so does your local library.

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On war

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‘War is nothing but a continuation of politics with the admixture of other means.’
Carl von Clausewitz, On War

We need children after war—
lots of them—
and so we need mothers and fathers.

…mothers and fathers…

Who would have thought: war—
a dating app,
available on all platforms.

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The last day of the Inquisition

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Faith is a perishable good with a somewhat intimidating scent
of respectability, a late symbol of our exalted humilitude—
as if café au lait wasn’t enough—and it makes me think
of the last day of the Inquisition and of clerks burning old paperwork
and auctioning off no longer needed instruments of torture
to be repurposed as it fits.

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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…

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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