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
Charles Travelyan and his wife live in the country. They rise at six.
While Charles is shaving, his wife reads Ibsen aloud to him,
and while she’s doing her hair, he reads Bernard Shaw aloud to her.
They work till twelve, when they have a light vegetarian lunch;
they then walk over ploughed fields till six, when they have a light
vegetarian dinner. After dinner Charles Travelyan reads aloud
for an hour and a half, and at eight they go to bed.
This is supposed to be the simple life, but my private view is
that Charles Travelyan’s one object in doing it is to save money,
as he’s the heir to forty thousand pounds a year.*
And, as then, so now, there is nothing like simple life
with a six million pounds sterling price tag—in today’s currency—
to while away the time in the country.
*Adapted from a letter by Lytton Strachey to Leonard Woolf, dated June 13th, 1905, as found in The Letters of Lytton Strachey, edited by Paul Levy.
More words to ponder at maciejmodzelewski.com
After swallowing, with a light breakfast, a daily dose of pity
pills and ridicule syrup, you spend the whole morning trying to find comfort
in vague declarations fastened with unfamiliar words and sturdy punctuation
that presented a sordid little drama as a fare of martyrdom,
only to realise that once you confessed to hearing, in response, ‘I beg your pardon?’
and still kept your calm, as if your gravely misspelt urges had never been revealed,
there was nothing left but to ask: Do I avoid people because I’m afraid of falling for one
and that that would be one-sided and rather silly, all things considered,
or because irrelephantiasis might prove to be contagious?
More words to ponder at maciejmodzelewski.com
As a humble word toiler, I never appreciate
the celestial knocker-upper waking me up earlier than usual,
yet today I lifted my eyelids in a somewhat brighter mood—
a spiritual shift or a simple fluke, I wonder.
There was nothing surprising in what came after:
the negligent ablutions, the changing of garments, a dash of yoga
after meditation on the throne, and the light breakfast preparation
to get the energy to read the young Bloomsberries.
There was also a pot of goulash that I had prepared
the previous evening and left to cool overnight so I could portion it
into heat-resistant glass containers and put in the freezer as dinners
for the whole week because I really hate cooking.
[then the hand on the keyboard froze for a while]
I’ve been able to give only a personal account
of the events that transpired that fine morning, but nonetheless
they will prove themselves worthy of the annals, if only for this
rather tottery verse, with one caveat, though—
I must ascend to the pantheon.
More words to ponder at maciejmodzelewski.com
Some remember Turkey for the Ottoman Empire;
others for Recep Tayyip Erdoğan,
the imprisonment, torture and enforced disappearances of Kurds,
the invasion of Cyprus,
the drone strikes on the Tishrin Dam,
and the list just goes on and on.
But I will remember Turkey for the dried apricots
with sulphur dioxide that poisoned me.
More words to ponder at maciejmodzelewski.com
As a discreet couch dweller,
keenly collecting calloused complements,
I have long found this protracted writers’ retreat—
or, as others call it, life—a rather daunting experience,
yet a certain sense of entitlement, albeit an off-putting one,
is to be expected in the heights of the Anthropocene,
with all those inflated egos and hopes
born amongst orphans in the making—
of which I am one.
More words to ponder at maciejmodzelewski.com
While I linger on the dwarf wall
at the corner of Union Street and Back Wynd,
leaning against a column with an Ionic capital,
I can’t help but detest the posthumous fame
of the man who wrote a book of short verses
with ponderous sentences full of yestermorrow
aspirations that I’m about to compose.
We are suffering not from the decay of theological beliefs but from the loss of solitude.
Bertrand Russell, ‘On Being Modern-Minded’
‘Life is an abomination, a conscious one more so’
is the mantra that wakes me up every morning,
but once that’s done, it’s time for a yoga session
while the flatbread bakes for a simple breakfast,
and after the body’s needs have been met,
intellectual nourishment is a matter of reflex,
with the occasional break for another meal or excretion
before finally returning to bed at the end of the day.
And while that’s all fine and dandy, sometimes it’s nice to have someone
remind you to breathe.
I brought home a used copy of T.S. Eliot’s collected works and cried
like Peter Kien on his wedding night—there was something tragic
about the torn and stained dust jacket and the dirty edges, as if Faber
and Faber had printed a hewer’s handbook—only to catch a glimpse
of a snob in the mirror.
hidden pilcrow 