The Queen comes to our City - Nina Živančević

"Among the purple feathers

Constance cuts an arresting figure."

As simple as that. I repeat.

The contents of my thought should not be

so trivial. The contents eating themselves. One

eating the other's substance. From subtle to daily

trivialities. Routines of people who some

call dogs and someone else is dyeing. His hair

red, lovely curls, capitalized, long like a syringe,

translucent balls of fire inside,

fiery cotton inside my head.

You are lovely tonight, going to die soon

so I am writing this ode to you...

Sitting behind that calculator sitting behind

that typewriter crawling behind that

word processor, you are lovely

and I will die for you.

No gas no electricity—Buddha's spring water

leaks here and there and then

crumples on your forehead, spits itself out.

the daily existence of a crocodile drowned in

someone else's tears.Connoisseurs of Beaux Arts

float down the Nile nowadays. Nowadays I see

the face of my late grandmother in this gray and

I'll-steal-you-Kafka-street. Don't touch this

and don't urinate here... Eat this slice of rye,

she says. And then she adds "I intended

to go far accross the sea

after all this has ended", meaning "all this"

the state of Pure War. It never ends though,

the content of my thought. It has its own frame

and an armour for itself. Thought feeding on itself.

The thought takes a piss.

The thought is a fox. It evades me and comes back

demanding my lousy attention.

And now, how could I not love you in front

of your warped mirror; you hide your belongings

behind that Eiffel of remembrance—it collapses

and I am trampled to death. In this frantic haze

of discoveries the city is old and a drag,

a troubled goyim drag fighting for its own existence.

Existence of a thought. My bed is troubled tonight

because it is spread and flat and it contains

the trampled thought. My bed is a cage for memories

and there is a crystal dove there, too.

There is a thought of mine there

resembling the West African Harmatan and

there is a particular love for one thought there

which has filth under its nails. There is

a thought which refuses to pay $500

for a dump where rats read Rabelais.

But you are lovely tonight, so lovely refusing

these Perugina candies which I love the best. They

are going to die in my mouth melted,

and there is a thought for them too.

"I feel better when I paint," Leah says, and then

she turns to poetry. This thought of poetry will

kill me eventually, but I don't regret it.

All this dandruff on my shoulders, all the points

we re eager to spot and make!

There is a thought of a lavender street in my future,

and I should be going there right now.

---

Nina Živančević (born 1957) Serbia (Lives in France)

Source: Big Bridge Vol 2 No 2 (Issue 6)