Entre Deux Eaux: Midstream

By Andrew Zolnai

Entre deux Eaux literally means: in between two streams of water. Andrews poetry hails from 2001 to 2006, and his prose is from 1996 to 2009. That period marked the processing of a complex post-war and post-revolution legacy, the reclaiming of both French and Hungarian heritages, and a return from North America to Europe. These writings reflect a keen interest in medieval history and science fiction, seen respectively as the roots and consequences of current affairs.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Xlibris UK
• Release date: Aug 26, 2011
• ISBN: 9781465351388

Andrew Zolnai

Andrew was born as his parents fled the late 1956 Hungarian uprising. They settled in France, though they were on the global expatriate circuit throughout his youth. He settled in Calgary for twenty years, during which he became a computer geologist and married his first wife. With his second wife he moved for a decade to the US where their daughter was born, and he travelled worldwide for work. Now settled in Cambridge UK, he also lived in Europe and the Middle-East.

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Copyright © 2011 by Andrew Zolnai .

ISBN: Softcover    978-1-4653-5137-1

ISBN: Ebook        978-1-4653-5138-8

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Contents

Dedication

  POETRY (2001 - 2009)

Holborn

Lago Como

Mr. President

San Donato

Neilgaimania

Pathétique

New Year

For John

Barbara

To Rob

In memory of a dear friend’s son

To my Wife, II

Yalta Royals

Ophélia

Ophelia

Adieu Concorde

Space Shuttle Columbia

That last song

Tyumen

To my wife

Red Square

I-10

Death row speaks

Las Marías, Tish Hinojosa, 1995

Las Marías, Tish Hinojosa, 1995

   PROSE  (1996 – 2009)

Islam then and now

Personal manifest

Lesson in life

Passing generation

Soul shades and Dali’s drawers

Scarcity mentality

What helped me through hurricane relief efforts

How the odour stole the fridge

From Russia with love

Redlands morn

Arctic summer

Rigs to computeR

Border crossings

   A LIFE STORY THROUGH 2003

1957—Escape from the Iron Curtain

1961—Out of the frying pan into the fire

1963—Nirvana at last

1965—Family ties

1967—Second home and citizenship

1975—The end of a cycle

1977—New beginnings

1980—Riding into the sunset

1982—Supernova

1986—Entrepreneur

1989—Second souffle (second wind)

1992—Entre deux eaux (midstream)

1994—New career

1996—New home, for now

1999—A year of moving

2000—Millennium

2001—New home, finally

2003—Manifesto:

Selected bibliography (2009)

Dedication

For his parents Greg and Marianne Zolnai, whose trek started this.

POETRY (2001 - 2009)

Holborn

(15 May 2009)

And there you stand on the platform

Gaze in the distance early morn

I’ve seen you off and on

But only traveller anon

In the tube I see you again

Walk up, Hello I say

We get on the same station and . . .

Recognition lights up your face

We banter in the crowd and heat

Squeeze into the carriage

Separate in the human press

You look over and I smile back

When you get off you smile

I mouth ‘see you later’

Nice to make connection

Amid the crowd of a million

When you stepped off the train

Did you step in my life or out

Is it a comma, a period

Question or exclamation mark

Inspired by a brief encounter on a London, England train and underground

Lago Como

(13 Apr. 2009)

Return to the lake on Easter

Crowded like an anthill in the

Warm spring sunshine, I head up the

Road, follow local custom and

Turn off medieval village

Blevio nestled in eastern shore

Visit’ by emperors, writers

And musicians of yore, I feel

The ghost of history whisper

Cross the secret passage to the

Old church and the port so quiet

Off season, wisteria abloom

Quiet yet busy on the road

Look toward Bellagio, walk back

To Como, road hugs the mountain-

side, alpine hunting region says

A road sign, motorbikes whizz by

Walk down the steps with mountain bikes

Past the fountain and angry swans

Back to the train into Milan

Mourning the dead of L’Aquila[1]

Just before Easter celebrate

Renewed life and sunshine

Swallows flying by high

Mr. President

(29 Mar. 2009)

Obama in the high’

Office of the largest

Country, you do stand high

On shoulders of the great

You will not give us fish

The American dream

Rather teach us to fish

You show us Yes we can

Remember little people

Who you also came from

You won’t have to say "No

I won’t sit in the back"

Gen’rational progress

Is rational progress

If you and I stand straight

Together look ahead

Take your people to the

Brink, and then march on thru

Don’t let missteps, struggles

Cloud your vision or ours

No bombs, no clouds, no heat

Yes our earth could be neat

Stay our harbour if we

Keep on shaping our fate

Written for my American daughter, inspired by a song in the soundtrack of the movie Forrest Gump

San Donato

(22 Mar. 2009)

At the corner of Monte Grappa

And Via Emilia a corner park

Monte Rosa blush in the sunset

Families and dogs around and caper

Old men smoking, ladies chatting

While I listen to my iTunes

Rory Block and southern blues in

Northern plains of Lombardy

Weekend stroll above funicular

San Brunato high above Lake Como

Snowy peaks peeking in the haze

Train clatters downhill as I gaze

At Milan’s outskirts and high-rises

Boy and girls chatter on mobiles

Italian Arabic all sounds the same

Why do we kill in name of race

When we are really all the same

I love travelling far and wide

To hear and see and feel and smell

Our variegated tapestry of life

To go and see and be with them

Is best to fight isolation

Narrow-mindedness and racism

Inspired by a walk in the park of the outskirts of Milan IT, where I worked the spring of 2009

Neilgaimania

(30 Jun. 2007)

The dark solitude of the mind

Never ever rests for the kind

The cruel will forever prowl

A hidden face in a monk’s cowl

Yet flick a light or beam a smile

And the habit will simply fly

Solitude’s but an illusion

The world’s distress relies upon

Explore those dark, dark recesses

Let neither prince nor princesses

Of your own imagination

Distract from your one possession

Your heart and mind are yours alone

For others will come and be gone

And you will hold an empty bag

That only you can fill or drag

It’s up to you to keep it light

Let yourself be free as a sprite

Crossing over those feared thresholds

That frighten only those not bold

For if you never take a chance

Will you lose out on every dance

The pas de deux of Good and Bad

No paradox? Isn’t that sad!

Inspired by Neil Gaiman’s prose and poetry www.neilgaiman.com

Pathétique

(6 Feb. 2007)

pathos, ethos, Tchaikovsky’s Sixth

married or gay, solemn or gay

the man, the music or the muse

Eighteen Twelve Overture or Fourth

who lived through oppression, abuse

who could tell him if he saw clear?

for we are all entre deux eaux[2]

we all go swim upstream to spawn

try to get near where we came from.

but swim against the flow and you,

you will lose all accoutrement

shed layers, layers of vestments

hurts are layer upon layer,

laid in over and over time . . .

misery sure loves company

as friend and foe will tell and tell

society will hold it still

and sure not help you shake it off

"it is so hard to be awake . . ."

shake off all those trappings of shame

step out of that sarcophagus

slip out of giant chrysalis

and greet new life in morning light

poised yet so still until ready

let not that tired metaphor

stand in the way of what needs done!

unless those layers are peeled off

we cannot be ready for what

will come—we will need that armour

to withstand pressure from without

it is however strength within

we must regain first and foremost

before we go out and battle

the evils of man(woman)kind—

Man or Woman are not evil

rather our behaviour can be

so let’s all recover our strength

healing, praying, and counselling

as long as we don’t isolate

as long as we don’t stop crying

as long as we don’t overwork

as long as we do stop killing

a magic pas de deux shuffles

and glides across the stage

seeming to defy gravity

and thereby lift our gravitas

for brief moments of levity

and thus blow ‘way melancholy

so let us look for what will draw

attention ‘way from our distress

help us delight in each other

seek out our zestful company

show all it is not misery

but joy inside that we all seek

bent-over babushka’s creased lines

child’s furtive smile and rosy cheeks

wide-eyed girl’s innocent surprise

bearded old man now lost in thought—

the breadth of human emotion

can be so much more than we thought

but first must come the confidence

of humankind in brotherhood

where dignity, pride and boldness

are self-evident rights for all

and not just for privileged few

by age, colour, money, or sex

come you all, let’s march to the

beat of our own drum, not which

society’s distress dictates—

dictators or democracy

will only play into the hand

of misery if we let be . . .

a muse when on the march is not

amused,