About

„Our Man in Vienna“ is a title that George Wallace used for a selection of my poems he published in his Poetry Bay Website. I’m using it as a title for my own Website. I met George Wallace at a reading hosted by our mutual friend David Axelrod at his home in Selden, Long Island a few years ago.

At the time, I was collecting poems by Alter Brody, a forgotten Jewish American poet. George shared my enthusiasm for Brody and we decided to collaborate on Before the Storm.

As a subtitle I’ve chosen „Stepping out of line,“ which is a movement my feet can’t seem to avoid making. I’ve always aspired to have smooth run as a writer, but I’ve had a very bumpy ride with a lot of hard knocks. I guess my feet have a life of their own. But then, perhaps that is as it should be. „Bystanding“ is a stationary quality I don’t relish. The events that took place here a few decades ago, transpired because multitudes and multitudes of bystanders gave the perpetrators, their catchpoles and sycophants free reign by bystanding and staying in line.“

I am presenting some samples of „stepping“ here. Violence under the Guise of Art is a theme that I have dealt with extensively. Instead of allying itself with the forces of light, art has taken a place in the forefront of the forces of darkness, with an ideology of anti-humanism and anti-aestheticism.

Another topic I have „touched upon“ is „remigration.“ This word is a neologism, which means coming back to where you have been driven out. Returning to my birthplace has given me a unique opportunity of writing on Third Reich Revisionism. This topic interlinks with Violence under the Guise of Art like pieces of a puzzle to reveal how the past manifests itself in the present.

The revisionists help perpetuate „cruelty in the name of art“ by superficially „opposing“ it. Sophistry and syllogism are the gambits the proponents of Violence under the Guise of Art use to daub anyone who critical of such proceedings with a brown brush.

The revisionists paint too: the atrocities of yesteryear are coated with rose-colored tones.
By playing the drums again at a „mature“ age, I found the key to writing about the music that has always been a part of my life, which resulted in Swing Men and Women. Here are poems from that collection, as well as portraits of musicians by guitarist and haberdasher Manfred Markowski. Manfred is the man who brought me back to the activity which led to verbal expression.

Smokers and non-smokers are especially welcome to this website. They will be confronted with the pros and cons of that activity, with the emphasis on the cons. If I can get a chuckle or two between drags and coughs from them, I’ll be delighted. To add to the enjoyment, there are collages by my artist friend Padhi Frieberger.
On the road I have traveled, I have met many remarkable people. First I name my friend and mentor the late Emile Capouya. „Mike“ encouraged me over the years and published two of my books in New York. I include a literary sketch on him, as well as sketches on others I admire.

And I would like to express my gratitude to my friend Fritz Kleibel, a brilliant filmmaker who puts this blog together and provided the film clips presented here.

Concerning projects, I present selections of poetry by the pioneer of poetic colloquial language, Alter Brody, and the wild man of Macedonia, Jozo Boskovski. I’ve chosen these two poets since their collections have not yet sailed into the haven of publication. However, Brody will be sailing under the imprints of the Verlag der Theodor Kramer Gesellschaft and Writers Ink Press in English original and German translation in a slip box.