The Phoenix

by Nina Zivancevfic

(for S. – in- distress)

Your cobalt blue eyes were set on me

When we met,   fortunately

Then your steady-ready midnight companion

Showed up,  unfortunately

Then some other smart folks

Joined in and the poetry reading started , fortunately

And the Tycoon said:

Why do poets pay that much

Attention to Intelligence?

I gained I lost and gained and lost and

Gained and lost and gained and lost

again so much money

–     but never took to writing po-et-ry!

Why should I worry about the imaginary

When the whole market romance is being ruined perpetually

“the time to hesitate is through

No time to wallow in the mire,

C’mon baby light my fire,

Try to set the night on fire…”

I had to pee and left that scene quickly,

unfortunately

You waited for me to come back, fortunately

But I was pregnant and so out of it, unfortunately

you took my phone number and called me

Six months later, fortunately

I was married by then and had a kid, unfortunately,

And the Poet said:

The feelings come and go, the pains, the hang-ups,

The threshold of intolerance,

the wicked edge of the years to come,

A message here, a messenger there

The sacred gene inside my molecular zone,

a breath… the bloom… the boom … a bubble,

A cake or a fake,

I kept her out of trouble…

You wanted us to cruise the Mediterranean

And I said ‘yes’, fortunately

The trip was great but forlorn,

You lost your passport and ended

In an immigration jail, unfortunately

I seduced a prison guard

Who released you, fortunately

We went back to Paris

But then your family claimed you back, unfortunately

And the Customs Officer disguised in a Vatican nun’s

Robes exclaimed:

Voila Madame,

now what you see- is exactly

What you get, but you will see

A lot in the ancient city of Paris,

The whores and the bores and the mores

Of the damned and the divine

Just try to remember that it’s more

Lucrative for you to be in your prime

When you meet that divine swine who

Will dine and wine you,

And whatever is there for you to see,

Just go for it and get it!

I was left alone,  with a lot of money

And a divine spark of inspiration- fortunately,

I tried to reach you but couldn’t locate you- unfortunately,

By the time we met again

We were ‘free’ and marked by that special

Spiritual yearning for solitude- fortunately

We decided to find a place and live

Together- unfortunately,

And the French Concierge said:

You are not allowed to make love

Here after 9:30am, too many people passing

Around and it smells like piss

Deep in the corridors

When I was young I’d clean that stuff

And lick it of occasionally

Now it hurts my knees to give blow jobs in

The dark and there’s no spark to it

And no money whatsoever, money and time

Belong to a young restless fox

And you should give me a dime to put

Your mail in that box or else…

We were so young and inexperienced- fortunately,

I had to tell you all this straight into your face- unfortunately

You didn’t take it too badly- fortunately

Later on you took drugs, unfortunately,

I found you a social worker and a shrink – fortunately

And the Shrink said:

The feelings come and go, but you are here to stay,

And if you’re in disarray, my clinic’s here to help you,

The pains, the joys, the hung-ups,

your toys of mighty disillusion, the thresholds

of tolerance, great vacuity of the unknown,

the breath, the bloom, the boom

this sturm und drang, the vacant bubble

just a subconscious rubble for you to play with

You blamed everything on me unfortunately,

As I followed you wherever you’d go

And you went to such good schools of life – fortunately,

But what sort of life, what kind of heavenly concept

Have we made in the universal cycle of truths,

What kind of lousy theatre have we created

Once and for all,

My only springtime,

My heavenly sunshine?

Andy Warhol’s Factory

When I ran into you at the Tower Records’s

You were with Jackie Curtis who was about

To marry Peter, or someone else you invited me

To the wedding and Gerard Malanga followed in

With Leo Castelli who was the guest of honour at

Jackie’s wedding and the amphetamines were taking

A walk on all sides of the street which was a dock in

The Meat District and West Highway

Where I was trying to find my way out

And you were such a big star Andy,

And now this posthumous show at le Grand Parlays in Paris

Like I said in my postscript I am glad that I’m still alive

And breathing and

You are posted for eternity

Society

They

Should not get

Used too much

To my presence said I

At the Academy of French Poets

In their Senate full of the elderly

And the mentally handicapped

The walls were thick with stupidity

And sadness and all their patrons of art

Prone to some subtle form of madness,

Doggerel is what they’d write

If you gave them a pen, a lecture

On the Beat generation if I found time

To do it, oh man!

Society,

I’ve kept you on a leash

For quite a long time,

You’ve howled and barked

And snivelled at my door and

Whenever you tried to visit me

I threw you a bone, and

Whenever you tried to get close to me

I shut my windows open.

LOVE IS JUST A FOUR -LETTER WORD

(Sonnet for my Ex)

Shall I compare thee to a winter’s day?

You are colder, more tempestuous, duller and

More painful than any climate ever

Experienced by a mortal made in clay

Wherever you move you exude stupid and icy airs

So self-assured and aggrandising, you tortured

My soul with fluff and moralizing

As you don’t read, my master of half-bigotry,

You confuse the words ‘fuck’ and ‘love’ and then

Call them Nina’s poetry, after all, they’re all four lettered

and in the end what really matters is that you can

live without my letters

pink, orange, yellow and banana, your colours shine

I am so happy living so far away from your cheery shrine!