Reuben Rose Poetry Competition

As some of you may have already heard, one of my poems, "Oasis," was selected for Third Place in the international Reuben Rose Poetry Contest held by Voices Israel Group of Poets in English (final judge, Richard Berengarten [Burns] of Cambridge University). Another poem, "As in a dream I see a grave that is not there...," received Honorable Mention.

For those of you in Israel, there is a public award ceremony and reading on Tuesday, 6 January 2008, 7:30 p.m., at ZOA House, 26 Ibn Gvirol St., Tel Aviv. I hope that you will be able to come to this public event. Richard Berengarten was originally scheduled to appear, but a family illness has caused him to cancel. His comments about the winning poems will be read, as I understand, and the winning poets will read their work. That includes me.

Also, my eBook, The World Behind It, Chaos..., a collection of poetry, photos, and digital artwork, is scheduled to be available from why vandalism? (whyvandalism.com) sometime in January. It will be free to download--so pass the word!

poem

unsaid
moments before
or after the falling
through space, time, you, me, waves--and see
again

and that
I don't know what
or why I myself do
or don't do what is undone
or why

New work online at why vandalism?

A poem of mine is in the current issue of why vandalism?

www.whyvandalism.com/issue_mar08.html#21

If you read it, let me know what you think.

Read my Helium.com articles

www.helium.com/users/1749...ow_articles

www.helium.com/users/174989.xml

New work online at Abramelin

I have a poem, six photos, and the cover photo published in the Winter 2007 issue of Abramelin: The Journal of Poetry and Magick (www.abramelin.net/). Check out my work and feel free to leave comments here.

Three new pieces in "why vandalism?"

The August issue of why vandalism? has three of my pieces -- a poem, a short prose piece, and a prose poem. Check them out at www.whyvandalism.com. Then come on back and leave a comment to let me know what you think of them!

Wedding and photo album...

Aviva and I stood under the Chupa on June 13. It was a spectacular wedding, in Jerusalem, at a restaurant on the promenade that overlooks a monastery, an Arab village, and the Old City. There was wild dancing and much joy. If you want to see photos, check out our online photo album (first installment, more pictures to come): web.mac.com/michael_dick...%20Cover.html

Story on Neon Beam

My short story, "Across the Creek," is in the premiere issue of Neon Beam, available online as a downloadable PDF at www.neonbeam.org/

Hope you download and enjoy the story!

why vandalism?

New work on why vandalism? whyvandalism.com/issue_jun07.html

Shoah Rememberance

In Israel, at any given moment, horns beep at intersections the moment the yellow flashing light joins the red light, the signal that a green light is coming. Drivers insist on moving forward, push the cars in front of them by creeping up before the green. Cars push through intersections on the other end, too, entering as the light turns red, a perpetual near-gridlock that somehow keeps flowing, however slowly, anyway.

Today, however, at 10 am everything stopped. I sat on a bus in Tel Aviv on my way to work, at busy intersection. A man got out of his truck and stood next to it. Other drivers and passengers got out of their cars and stood. Then I heard the siren.

The bus driver stood. All of us inside the bus stood. Pedestrians stood still.

A nation commemorated the Holocaust, the Shoah. For a brief moment, a siren's mournful wail, and a silent, standing people stretched time into the past. Everything was still.

Some of us on the bus remembered that during our generation, six million Jews died in the Holocaust. Some of us remembered that during our parents' generation or our grand-parents' generation the Shoah was. Some likely remembered lost family members, or at least the names and echoing memories of those lost in their family.

The siren sound fell. Everyone on the bus sat back down, the pedestrians strode along their ways again, and as soon as the flashing yellow light joined the red light in front of us, a couple of horns sounded their drivers' impatience.

Perhaps it is fitting. For even after our moment of rememberance, genocide continues in our own time. Distant places names like East Timor, Rwanda, and most recently, Sudan echo like impatient horns. Time for us to get a move on. Time to go. Somewhere. Anywhere.