Am I wrong or something deeper is going on with the
world
This yearning to enjoy the scenery is never going to be mine
This crossing between Calais and Dover full of seagulls and wild waves
I don’t enjoy any longer after the events in the jungle of Calais
And when I arrive in London
Who am I to see now
Where am I to go!?
Migrant that I am
I treasured friendships with people who disappeared into
Another dimension too quickly
A cold creature dressed in foam approaching me with his scythe now
All the dearest have gone
They were kind of disgusted and disillusioned with the daily planet too
My phone book contains only dead numbers
But the shrink encourages me to walk on
Which place in London have I liked the best? The
Squalor of the first squat where I landed in as a young girl or the glorious suite in the
Savoy hotel where my friends were helping themselves to
free lunch and breakfast
Well, that all ran fast, my life that is
And Karl Marx’s grave next to Alma Mahler’s at the Highgate
Attests to their humanist glory
Perhaps that’s where my feet of Hermès should be
heading right now
On translation
In the corner cornered
In the room for the poets with a handicap
I translate
Their grants from The German foundations from
Swiss trust funds French catholic associations
Their poems about their inability to move
It’s the chorus of wheelchairs concerto of crutches symphony of metallic corsets and
prosthetic material of all sorts
I hope they get their money they were asking for
As there isn’t a single reimbursement for the suffering they are going
through
And yet it’s good that they were allowed to suffer even for a second of
eternity
In my case it all had to be done away quickly
They replaced my right leg with titanium
And I was back to work day three, I crawled and flexed and slouched and
wiggled
Like any other bionic woman
Cause if I hadn’t done it- oh, it was so clear to me- I would not have food
to eat,
And I remembered, yes, I remembered Francois Villon who once wrote
That all the handicapped one legged and deprived
Marched for France and
God knows what King they marched exhausted by life
And they did not know why
Where to and who for
The Hundred year war between England and France
Was it?
Taming the demons
The daemon of money, daemon of debts- quit my
domain
Out !!! Get out with your filthy load of
worries...
Out out out OUT!!
—Demon of addiction- out of my way!
You don’t need the excuse that you see the
world too clearly then let your brains drown in drugs and alcohol
You can see the sad world without an attachment
to it
Daemon of memory!! Out! You tortured me enough
and I’m extraditing you
to the land of Alzheimer’s!
Daemon of impatience -
You were made for young people
In good health
Calm your angry heart and get out
Of this room!
Daemon of loneliness
Can you change your clothes please? I remember
the times
When you were all dressed in rose and gold and I
begged on
You to stay or just visit me again
Oh- now too late! It’s so hard to love you-
Get out of my heart!!
Russian roulette
I had a gun triggered at my head
And it did not fire off
I was pale like a parchment
My life passed quickly before my eyes
I was playing with my dog Atman the keeper of my soul in our garden on Topcider’s
hill In 1959, I wanted to keep my last image of something beautiful something really
innocent like my grandma singing arias from the Fledermauss
while cooking lunch
Like my son staring at an old painting in the Jacquemart Andre’s museum age 5, like
me going on the first date with a judo champion age 16 and then I’m back on Pierre’s
couch listening to his Tchaikovsky age 65,
All of these moments rushed by before my teary eyes and I was glad I’d had
them
Then nothing happened, the gun did not fire, dr Levy telling us slowly they made a
mistake here how could they have an x- ray with such an old machine!,
Anyways, life is very short
It is a shame we cannot think of art or the moment
Of falling in love with that someone special when the gun is pointed at the
temple
Life has gone so fast
It’s a shame..
THE RUSSIAN
He was seated in front
Of a TV set
Immobile
Staring at
the Russian tanks and drones
Demolishing
Ukraine
How
horrible he said
How
horrible!
I was in a
hurry
To wash the
dishes and
Prepare
some light supper
Quite light
before our trip
Scheduled
tomorrow morning
He was
staring at the screen
Immobile
Then he
started laughing
Why are you
laughing, I asked,
And what’s
so funny on that screen?
I asked
truly in dismay, outraged.
I’m
laughing at your idea to travel to St.
Petersburg
And ask Putin
to return our old houses to me, he said,
Don’t you
see what the man is all about,
How
horrible, how horrible, that devil!
Nina Zivancevic
Poet,
essayist, fiction writer, playwright, art critic, translator and contributing
editor to NY ARTS magazine from Paris, Serbian-born Nina Zivancevic published
15 books of poetry. She has also written three books of short stories, two novels
and a book of essay on Milosh Crnjanski (her doctoral thesis) published in
Paris, New York and Belgrade. The recipient of three literary awards, a former
assistant and secretary to Allen Ginsberg, she has also edited and participated
in numerous anthologies of contemporary world poetry.
As
editor and correspondent she has
contributed to New York Arts Magazine, Modern Painters, American Book
Review, East Village Eye, Republique de lettres. She has lectured at Naropa
University, New York University, the Harriman Institute and St.John’s
University in the U.S., she has taught English language and literature at La
Sorbonne ( Paris I and V) and the History of Avant-garde Theatre at Paris 8
University in France and at numerous universities and colleges in Europe.
She
has actively worked for theatre and radio: 4 of her plays were performed and
emitted in the U.S. and Great Britain.
In
New York she had worked with the “Living Theatre” and the members of the
“Wooster Group”.
She
lives and works in Paris.
http://theendofbeing.com/2015/05/21/an-interview-with-allen-ginsbergs-assistant-nina-zivancevic-unveils-the-underground/
http://blues.gr/profiles/blogs/serbian-poet-nina-zivancevic-talks-about-the-beat-culture-cohen
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