There is none but one certainty,
expressed by the simple ‘I am’—
everything else, like the nine extra floors,
contemplated with that achromatic I of mine,
is a possibility; though if I pretended
to be anything but a curmudgeon on a rainy day,
delighted that the gentle patter of raindrops
on the leaves of the tree outside my window
replaced the song of Malebolge rising
from the school yard across the street at lunch,
I would be lying.
More words to ponder at maciejmodzelewski.com
I have always believed that boredom is a symptom of the laziness of the mind, for brilliant minds are self-sufficient, as seen in the case of Richard Feynman, who remained lucid, mentally active, and undisturbed even by the absence of sensory input in John C. Lilly’s isolation tank. And although I’m far from that level of acumen myself, I’ve often quipped that I’m never bored because I share my time with a very intelligent person—myself. Besides, I tend to keep books close at hand. (And speaking of books and great minds, I’ve long found it fascinating when intellectuals claim that a particular book changed their life—only to then have a flash of insight: nothing like that has ever happened to me, so either I’m not easily impressed, or I’m simply too dim to grasp what I read.)
More words to ponder at maciejmodzelewski.com
Raised in a facetious milieu—
like a delayed palindrome with an imposing façade
yet very gentle and kind—
Mr Honk decided to be cheerful for a change
and wash radishes for breakfast
without the usual wry contempt
for corporeality,
although he knew it was a whim,
not a Nicomachean attempt.
More words to ponder at maciejmodzelewski.com
It puts me in a rather peculiar position when—rather than, considering my age, courting a preposterous dowager—I yearn for the creamy scent of a perfectly ripe banana, the inconsequential beauty of unwitting lasciviousness—even if one exhibits something as mundanely inappropriate as picking one’s nose, so it is impossible not to call one a perfect scandal—a sun-drenched firmament of tiny freckles, and more. I can’t wait to see how ridiculous I will be in ten years when I’m sixty.
More words to ponder at maciejmodzelewski.com
The frail constitution of conscience,
the assumed brevity of spirit,
and the calculated immodesty of mind,
all curtained with a green palette—
courtesy of a linden bathed in sunlight—
is a simple recipe for disaster
or a poem.
More words to ponder at maciejmodzelewski.com
If someone I know
that they live in my time zone
reads my latest poem at two in the morning
(likes have a timestamp, profiles geolocation),
I can’t help but worry if they are okay.
Maybe they’re suffering from insomnia
or a broken heart, or they’re trying to forget
the pain in a hospital bed,
or they just grabbed their phone
on the way to the bathroom,
but whatever it is, I
am worried.
How selfish of me.
More words to ponder at maciejmodzelewski.com
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.
If someone asked me if I was happy, I honestly wouldn’t know
what to say—not because I don’t know myself,
but because I don’t know what I’m being asked.
Happiness is one of those buzzwords that’s been around since time immemorial
and supposedly puts us above the paramecium, to name just one,
but I feel like we would have understood temporal multidimensionality sooner,
even though physics professors who study it are few and far between;
yet it can’t simply be reduced to an exercise in stale semantics.
So what is this chimaera we chase to the point of obsession,
or should I say, this phantom itch we don’t know how to scratch?
Whatever it is, there will always be those all too happy
to make a killing on the back of it.
I had a stew
made with butternut squash,
sweet potatoes,
and sun-dried tomatoes
for dinner tonight—a humble result
of emptying the fridge into a pot
in the hope that the final product
would be edible—while listening to Joni
when the thought came to me
how utterly ridiculous creatures we are,
stuffing our mouths
only to excrete some hours later,
repeating it over and over again like markers
in an indefinite stretch of time between now and then,
and in the end none of us is any wiser;
everyone is just making it up as they go,
but perhaps some are better
at pretending
that they know clouds.
hidden pilcrow 