Nina Zivancevic

Roller-skating Notes

It is so much better to get a pair of roller-skates
and set a poem free,
it is so much more interesting to see some friends once a year,
it is so much mucho painful to see some people every day
it is certainly much more subliminal to be left alone
write diaries or read an airconditioned Blaise Cendrars,
it is certainly much more useful to lie down, not
move, touch the earth, kiss the floor, embrace the door and
much  more
perhaps just howl or hold someone dear to you,
it is certainly much more practical to fumble through invoices,
legal documents or unfinished galleys of a commercial publisher,
it is certainly much more satisfying to sit on a Kandahar balcony,
patting an Afghani hound in a lazy crystalline afternoon dusk,
it is certainly much more romantic to be Dracula’s lover or
Voltaire’s fellow-talker in a European gloomy castle,
or drink beer at CBGB’s with your ball chain and leather
psychedelic pals,
evidently, it takes much more effort to sign petitions
to set prisoners free, write phony mail
to iron-curtain cordial officials or answer useless or urgent
calls when your heart is on fire,
and it’s even more prestigious to keep up with the Tennessee
Song Lyrics contests or with scoops of the news from various
organizational gatherings claiming that you can still
print whatever you think
about the guy who stopped me on a street this morning
yelling out prophetic words at me and the one
I remembered was meant to hit me hard
below every inch of the belt
IF YOU wanna skate, he said,
YOU HAVE TO HAVE AN ATTITUDE
and this glorious city, smaller than life,
will not let your poem
fly away with that one

 

 
Drop of Spanish blood (a migrant’s story)
 
I see your rage
You poor migrant’s son
Your resplendent beauty as you
Defend my honor
In front of that large bureaucratic stupidity
I knew you would have to revenge on those
Who have been humiliating me since the day one:
You were about to leave my stomach and I couldn’t ask
For water
The nurses ignored me, I was hysteric
On the verge of tears
I was changing your diapers on a bus to Hungary
When they wanted to throw us out
From the bus
And then much later
The police officers were asking me if I spoke
To you in French, for the sake of better integration;
No one has ever seen my tears but you
At night when I was reading and rereading the French dictionary
I thought I was going insane
And today flashing all these beautiful
Polite and polished idioms in your father-tongue
You have fought for my rights, resilient poet
that you are, disheveled , brilliant and modest
you’ve noticed : less is always more,
it survives in winter
in my private language of oblivion
it’s just a language, and the meaning remains hidden
to those who have never moved
out of their walled up chambers
and their
tucked up destiny



 
Bergson, on the edge of positive thinking

So if we close our eyes shall
We see the same shade of the blue
Which we see on your painting?
Shall i be sad that my son has gone
Into his reckless adventure
Or shall i be happy to get a brand new daughter?
Should i feel sorry that i felt obliged
To leave that soulful event or simply
Delighted that i had a chance to
Be there when it started happening?
Shall i feel heavy that my pockets got
Emptied or simply relieved that i
Did not have to worry about my possessions any longer?
And if i have not recently dwelled with angels, i was hanging out with
Their less fortunate brothers, so
Reckless  wordly and  sublime..
 
2017