Dr. Imre P. Zsoldos, SDW, was born in Hungary, educated in France and the United States and has been a language professor and Dean of French at Fu Jen University in Taipei, Taiwan. Now retired, he still consults and has various duties as well as writing poetry. He frequently has acted as interpreter for UPLI and other international organizations. He has won many poetry prizes. Many of his works have been published internationally in many different languages.
It is with great sorrow that I announce the death of our good friend and UPLI Board Member, Dr. Imre P. Zsoldos, SDW, who died in January, 2010, of a heart attack after a stroke with complications. Our condolences and prayers go out for this humanitarian who was, for many Congresses, our translator, using his 12 languages to bridge gaps in communications between our world-wide friends.
As you’re getting day by day, forcibly old
As you’re getting day by day, forcibly old,
Your mind deepens, but your heart shrinks,
You must create for your peace a new world
Because nobody can live in flaunting flings!
Between Earth and Heaven the void is huge,
All what you buried in your life: good and bad
Cannot give you enough light, quiet and refuge
You want to chase away all fog, sad, mad, fad.
You look for great heroes, champions in history
And wish you could be like them or even a saint.
There is no more time left anymore to be dilatory.
My advice is: get burning inside without any fume.
And include all the others in your circle, loving heart.
Then you can wait the day in quiet for your doom.
Xinzhuang, Sep. 30, 2008.
Copyright © by Imre P Zsoldos
From soul to soul Arpad Toth
Standing next to the window at night,
Leering through the immense distance
I collect in my retina the trembling
Rays of a suave star back of beyond!
This light came from billions of miles
It came through the icy, black and bare
Areas incessantly pushing forwards! Who
Knows how many years it already traveled.
It’s a celestial message, which finally
Found me and in my eyes, its purpose!
It will die happily when I will close the
Coffin-cover of my wearied, tired eyelids!
I acquired that this celestial light brings
News, after it has been sieved through fine
Instruments of scientists to our sad earth
And my sad body which is related to them.
I hide it in myself, I do imbibe it thirstily
While I’m contemplating in complete silence
What an ancient, sad tune chants in light
To the blood, to the earth, to the elements!
Is it possible that the stars dislike be alone?
How many millions are up there like orphans!
How come that we never meet in this icy distance,
Pitch dark obscurity and outlying inter-space?
Oh sweet star! Why do you cry? You are not further
From me than our hearts from each other on the earth!
You, Syrius, are you the farthest from me or a friend
Of mine! Oh, who can tell, oh, who can really tell?
Translated from the Hungarian by Imre P Zsoldos
Nuanced prayer-scrapes
From now on, I will think,
Deeply touched, of gold
Adorned shrines, in which
One could sense the breath
Of the summer and autumn
Constant, always up kept!
In front of them, dittannies,
While inside the litanies’
Solemn sounds softened
The souls’ woeful suffering!
At their back, swinging oats
Swished in the twilight!
When will be the wild trance
Finally converted into a park?
I blow off the dust of dappled,
Dizzying immortality and
Of well-known masterpieces
And let drop in unkempt all
That has still value in the eyes
Of Yahweh, the Highest Good!
Xinzhuang, March 28, 2007
Copyright © by Imre P Zsoldos
Ecce Homo
In compact tress is ripening the torpor.
The devil offers his appending autarchy
And breathless boredom on the balconies!
When the lean years will come we can eat
The clichés and platitudes with spoons!
It is already neatly quoted on the Stock
Exchange that there is a big chance to
Win on the intelligentsia’s cattle-show.
Another ad says: there will be a great
Carousel of flat-chested misconceptions!
You can read very long descriptions about
An entirely new type of farfel-making in
Cod fish oil. Mediocrity is sold in giant
Cones, at all street corners of big cities!
The reporters’ and paparazzi’s cameras will
Show us in glaring and undoubted certitude
That nowadays man is able to make a never-
existing-before-ish hell-hound hullabaloo!
Xinzhuang, June 20 2008
Copyright © by Imre P Zsoldosthe dust of dappled,
Dizzying immortality and
Of well-known masterpieces
And let drop in unkempt all
That has still value in the eyes
Of Yahweh, the Highest Good!
Xinzhuang, March 28, 2007
Copyright © by Imre P Zsoldos
Thomas the Apostle
Brothers, I could see his wounds
And bore my fingers into them!
I could sound out what Love is,
But also what sin can make in us,
The sin we play with so easily!
And I saw what good Brothers are,
The good will and a true heart:
Foundation for any perfect union!
Brothers, after I have seen the Lord
In his resurrected glare as I was told
I know that true Life is for the bold!
Xinzhuang, July 5, 2007
Copyright © by Imre P Zsoldos
Life’s lacing labyrinth
Should I make a reproach?
For what, and just whom to!
To my parents, my father,
Dear Mother! To the genes!
To karma, to the Creator!
To the nefarious destiny!
We were nine brothers or
Rather half-brothers and
Sisters because my father
Had two wives though not
Simultaneously! His first
Wife died of tuberculosis.
Four children had been left
After in the need of basic
Food, health conditions!
Yet, father remarried and
In a row four more children
Were born from his second wife!
Alas, one of them died also
At his early age! Can one not
Say: life is a lancing labyrinth
And an absurd enigma and sphinx!
Think rather of hymns to God.
Even if I have never gotten
Any roses as a token of love
In my youth from anybody
With whom I could have shared
My sprouting conundrums, coy,
Inching along, God helped me
In many ways! I did not give up.
Life is a terrestrial paradise!
A singing-box, a non-stop merry-
Go-round of fulfilled children
Dreams or rather something
Like an ever lancing labyrinth!
Xinzhuang, Jan 17, 2006
Copyright © by Imre P Zsoldos
Enkindling Light
Don’t get scared or afraid:
My secret is being creative.
All that is dimmed in me
Will shine in your deeds!
My idly bygone years count
For you as trifling wait.
Don’t get scared of me:
I don’t know how but life
Is bobbling, boiling in me.
I can’t help, my fiery sparks
Must ignite day and night!
Don’t get scared of me:
The fire that burns in me
Is timeless! Even if yours
Is extinguished or put
Under dormant ashes, it can be
Enlivened! It can enflame you
And all who get enkindled.
Don’t be scared of me:
With my mild light I can
Operate not only in dark
But in shining daylight!
Because you can never,..
Never have enough of me!
Copyright © by Imre P Zsoldos
Xinzhuang, July 28, 2008
Faithful Comrades Do Not Think
Dedicated to Quemoy’s soldiers, guardian angels of Freedom!
Chaps, champions, faithful Chinese comrades!
Do not think even for a very short second
That the world is a happy place, an Elysium
To live and work in because there are a few
Thousand millionaires who can enjoy life
Fully and do whatever they want or wish.
There are, indeed, many more thousands and
M i l l i o n s (!), who are in need of the
Most necessary food, clothes, shelter and
Nourishment! And even more millions and
Millions, men and women, who are lacking
In love, peace, justice, freedom, respect,
Joy, warmth, recognition, happiness, fame,
Well-being, kindness, concern and good care!
The majority of our humankind is in shackles
And in constant feud with dark forces, devilish
Despots of all type: physical, mental, political,
Spiritual! Our globe is a marketplace, a rag-fair!
Everybody brings out their merchandise and tries
To sell his knick-knack or commodities! This is
But only the surface, the appearance, the façade!
This is the general sentiment: life is a fight,
An eternal, ferocious fight, day and night!
One must always be a sentinel, a soldier alert!
One must stand on one’s own post, day and night.
Like you, the soldiers here on the islet Quemoy,
With measured space: one, two, one, two, one,two!
One must always obey one’s Commander: one, two, one,
Because the enemy can be hawk-eyed too, one, two!
Xinzhuang, April 16, 2001
Copyright © by Imre P Zsoldos
Fan the Flame
Be always aware of it:
Your eyes are fountains
Of fetching hopes!
Your scaly scars are
Glorified vestiges
Shining in the dark!
Your two hands are
Stretching out tools
Of not just a better world,
But of your eternity, too!
Our world is in labor
Day and night when
The dawn lights up
Or the heaven’s stars
Start scintillating,
The raucous ravaged realm
Of the universe resuscitates
And beyond the palpable
Reality the golden oriole
Turns anew a fine tune on!
At that very moment
You can be ascertained
That the most valiant act
You can somehow produce
Is to always recommence:
A hoe in your hands,
You must work painstakingly.
Stargazing is not for you!
Stave off pernicious pessimism.
Some of the faraway stars
Can envy you in the firmament!
Xinzhuang, March 27, 2007
Copyright © by Imre P Zsoldos
I am your handicraft
I am your handicraft. You drafted my look
And my eye’s shape! You lit them up with
Light like, once upon a time, in Eden,
The sun, moon and stars! Clumsily raise I
My two hands over my heart! Inside, it
Becomes warm! What a phenomenal sensation!
In it, I feel your grace’s pulsation.
My prayers eagerly fly. In the corner of
My lips, a smile, you’re delighted with,
Is taking shape! You have not only created
Me, but you knead me anew in every single
Moment! And if you think it is needed,
You even do touch my heavy-laden heart.
I am your mild, suave breath, and perhaps,
I resemble you a bit, or at least I can say
I am your murky mirror in which you still
May recognize your own image, yourself!
Copyright © by Imre P Zsoldos
Xinzhuang, Nov 5, 2006
I must be quiet Imre P Zsoldos
If you do not open my lips
I will always remain soundless.
If you do not move my legs
I won’t be able to make any steps.
If your pitch pipe does not give me
The tuning, my singing voice
Will infallibly be out of key!
Like a statue stand I in awe
Mesmerized and motionless!
And my pining for you is louder
Than the murmuring streams
In the mountain! When I sigh
It’s already the beginning of a chant.
My heart’s throb is a tacit taking.
You who pay heed to the whispering stars
And to the happily hopping gazelles, You!
Don’t need to be told this. You comprehend,
But strengthen my feeble knees frightened!
Long live the spirit of Sozhenitsyn
What an embroiling ambience life is!
It’s a sad mixture of repulsive deeds
And worries! It’s a blight cumbersome
Curse, scourge, distress, doom! What
Else? A lot of other phenomena, events!
In our blood the demon of fire-flame
Is still simmering! And in the impasse
Of our daily life heartless things
Prevail and all that is noble, gentle
And desirable get drained to wasteland.
We have better conditions than ever,
You say. We can gush off our shelter,
The lair of our half-bred cultures,
The morass of our moral-immoral bonds,
We can fly up to timeless spaces and
Disregard the hypocrite preconceptions
Our ancestors suffered from so much.
But what can we then do against Death?
Face it as did those heroes who got over
The ravage of folk-tribunes, the diabolic
Nod of the head of hegemonic oppressors,
The dire and savage teeth of wild animals
At the Coliseum and the biting frost
In the gruesome, grubby gulags of Siberia!
Copyright © by Imre P Zsoldos
Xinzhuang, Aug 5, 2008
Like an Embryo… Dedicated to TAI JI MEN QIGONG ACADEMY
Like an embryo I’m coiled up
In the middle of a jungle
This bestial, bloody world
Which I have not chosen,
Never wanted, never liked.
I was thrown into it crying
In protest and refusal!
From my mother’s womb on
My life is misery, pain,
In that womb I could feel
Her soft lulling heart and
Listen to the silky scented
Sizzling of her blood, flesh,
Pay heed to the hard work
Of her heart, kidneys, lungs,
Liver, stomach and insides!
I could hear with open ears
Her anguish to bear me down
As a healthy, happy child
And grow and develop into
A fully mature human being!
But the world, this jungle
Is a vain, vicious whirlpool
Filled with venomous vipers,
Vainglorious, wrathful rats,
Worldly-minded profiteers,
World-weary, suicide seekers!
Oh God! Flare up in my heart
The light which can beam at
This dark! Dissipate it fast
From my life and let it be
Like mother wanted it to be.
Copyright © by Imre P Zsoldos
We need both sun and rain to make a rainbow
We are born without our want, wish or accord,
“To be or not to be” is not done on our word.
Once we enter into this life and the umbilical cord
Is cut there is always Damocles’ trenchant sword
Menacing us! We are for aye insecure, uninsured.
Sorrow is somehow part of our passing lives
And suffering is there in almost everything.
Love is most precious in our human existence
But there are three rings to it, as goes the saying:
“An engagement ring, a wedding ring and suffeRING!”
Living is never pure bliss, maintained merriment.
Life is mostly mingled with light and shadow.
Beatitude cannot ever be reached, cannot grow.
When savage, screeching winds in autumn blow
Only then can we have high hopes winter will bring
More godsends, more blessing in the form of snow,
More protection to have more flowers, more fruits
And not just frost, harmful horrors, heart-stricken haws,
Horrendous hacking coughs, obnoxious hearses, death tolls!
God washes the eyes of his beloved children with tears
Until they are so purified by his cleansing, smooth dew
That they can see the land of unending bliss and happiness
Where he shall dispel all the clouds of sad sorrow!
Earth has no pain that Heaven could not fully undo.
Those who suffer can better learn how to pray,
How to cry, how to beseech God, the Eternal
In their trouble and senseless misery and suffering,
Since the most momentous truth of our existence is this:
Be rich or poor, underfeed, lucky or miserably unsuccessful,
We need both sun and rain to make a rainbow!
Copyright © by Imre P Zsoldos
