Five Poems by Nina Zivancevic

 

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