I was born in Columbus Ohio, USA, in 1947. I graduated from Ohio State University with a BA in Psychology. I served in both the US Army and the Israeli Defense Forces. I've been writing poetry since I was a student at OSU. I've published five books of poetry, a book of essays, and four science fiction novels. I moved to Israel in 1978 and live in Raanana. I'm married and have three sons and eight precious grandchildren.
I write about my experiences and what I know. Then I like to put those things in a dramatical context, oftentimes a sci-fi context, using my imagination to extrapolate or interpolate from what is possible to what is not yet possible. I like to challenge myself (and, I suppose, my readers). I sometimes like to sprinkle in a little love, a bit of sadness, and a slight amount of uncertainty and panic.
Check out my blog at http://uncollectedworks.wordpress.com/.You can read my latest poetry, short stories, and essays, while they are works in progress.
Interests Reading and writing poetry, short stories, and science fiction. Playing chess. I used to read chess books by the masters. I used to play music (clarinet and saxophone) and compose. I used to draw, paint, and sculpt. I speak, read, and write English and Hebrew fluently. I used to speak Spanish and German passably well. I also studied Russian and Arabic. I read a lot of astronomy, history, philosophy, and psychology.
Favorite Books All of Professor Yuval Noah Harari's books ("Sapiens", "Homo Deus", & "21 Lessons for the 21st Century"), Wendell Berry's "New Collected Poems", Arthur C. Clark's "Profiles of the Future", Lawrence Durrell's "The Alexandria Quartet", John Fowles' "Magus", Jonathan Safran Foer's "Everything Is Illuminated", and others. I've lived a long life of reading.
Favorite Authors Yuval Noah Harari, Wedell Berry, Lawrence Durrell, John Fowles, Jonathan Safran Foer, William Faulkner, J.D. Salinger, T.S. Eliot, Ezra Pound, Gary Snyder, Tom Clancy, Jared Diamond, Susan Sontag, Friedrich Nietzsche, Philip K. Dick, Nelson DeMille, Irvin Yalom, Eli Wiesel, Yves Bonnefoy, and others too many to remember.
Favorite Movies Blues Brothers, The Day the Earth Stood Still, Franco Zeffirelli's Romeo and Juliet, Elvira Madigan, The Piano, 2001 A Space Oddessy, The Wizard of Oz, Chicago, Carousel (Rogers and Hammerstein musical), A Beautiful Mind ...
Favorite TV Shows Lost, House, Criminal Minds (for the quotes)
Favorite Music J.S. Bach, Handel, Vivaldi, Beethoven (odd-numbered symphonies), Aaron Copland, Dave Brubeck, Shostakovich, Arvo Pärt, Eric Satie, Verdi, Wagner, Charles Ives, Sibelius
“What is the spirit of the bayonet fighter? To kill, to kill, with cold, cold steel”
Back in 1961, I heard on the radio that Kennedy had sent 500 US Special Forces and military advisors to a place called Vietnam. I was just starting high school at the time. It was the first time I remember hearing about that country. We also had a war going on in the Korean peninsula. Things were pretty tense with the Cold War between NATO and the Warsaw Pact countries. Kennedy and Khrushchev had just played “Chicken” w...
Our “mamad” (a protected room in an apartment constructed with reinforced concrete to withstand anything but a direct impact from a conventional projectile) doubles as a TV room and contains bookshelves and a work niche. On the second shelf above the desk is a small chest reminiscent of a pirate’s treasure chest. It contains most of the coins I had in my pockets while traveling through various countries. Our grandchildren...
You are far too thin to survive these kinds of things.
"The Poetry Lesson" (inspired by Osip Mandelstam’s “The Stalin Epigram”) The cell is pitch black except for two cones of stark light, One over a man wearing a sea-green single-breasted tunic, Breeches, polished jackboots, and a peaked cap, Sitting behind a metal desk, And the other over a naked man whose arms and legs are Chained to a four-legged chair with one leg missing. First man: Name? Second man: Mikhail. FM: Mi...
