Spring cleaning.

Just a couple of 'housekeeping' things.

First, welcome to Matt (is it?). His arrival makes us four strong... provided James ever comes back.

Secondly, Chris is going to be putting up some guidelines for a project we'd like to get working on, a collaboration/compilation of sorts. Non-internet publishing might be involved. He'll have something up eventually.

Also, since we're growing in number, we might want to consider expanding in purpose and presentation. Right now, Pedestrian Protection is just a typical, obscure garage band (of poetry), but would you guys be interested in approaching rock star, record label-mode? That is, trying to gain some sort of readership, finding means of exposure, etc., etc.. Or should we stay as we are?

Finally, update. Post. Create. Comment. Twice-monthly sucks. Chris wants a weekly schedule, and I'd push for something even more frequent than that. Anything is good, so long as we're fertile longer than we're fallow.

That's all from me.

The Singular Self

the room is a husk
insides dried up
there is no one here
but a man’s straight thin line
which in the evening, so frequently
leads off to
the dark

it leads him to run
far across corn fields
always-bright
away from anyone and
anything at all
to strip off clothes and
run naked, to peel away into the dark
where no one can find a man
who wants to be found but
has no way to be visible

the clearing of throats and rolled eyes
the clicked tongues of conversation

he will instead run into the pale places
the poor places
piss-poor, no accomplice
but humility in the face of
the single self

the single self

singluar self

//Exquisite Corpse//

//Exquisite Corpse//

If only your veins were filled with oil and your skin were paraffin
people would rush to your rescue,

If only your mind were made of wax.
If only your soul burned absolutely clear,
absolutely efficiently.

If only we weren’t forced to leave something behind

What an elegant, absent apparition you are.

Filled my car with gas today.

Sweet scents betweens strangers--
no knowledge past smell and intimate odors.
An affair of the nostril; an early-morning
endeavour of the eye to expand lust's perception.
They know their places--
fifth seat in from the rear of the
second car from the front of the
6:15 express--
and everything is right,
but will never be anything more.

Just something from this morning since I haven't posted in many a year. Nothing good.

Almost every time I take the 6:15 train to Philadelphia, the same moderately-young woman takes the seat next to me. We never speak, but it still feels like we're familiar with each other. Comfort in consistency, pattern, and routine, perhaps.

She smells really good. Or her perfume does.

I guess I'm a creep for thinking about it, but, being stuck next to someone--for an hour and a half-- who doesn't reek versus someone who does often makes or breaks my day.

Gobbledygook

Gobbledygook (Protest Poem)
for Professor Price


where I come from the plant is growing

I see it

at night
from my bedroom window
burning the sky's red glow

I inhale black smoke hot
like a cigarette and hack
caffeine arrogance
streetlight poetry

see

when I walk by they all flicker
like birthday candles: how I know
this is my neighborhood
my town
my polluted sky

see

my friends and me
we sip beers in basements
we cliff sit and smoke dope
we watch the clouds

see,

we drive 95 and 202

'this is romance,'
we think but don't say
over homecoming shakes
at the Charcoal Pit

see

in time
the creek will lead to the ocean

for now
I catch tadpoles in the slime

see

gobbledygook wins every time

see

where I come from
I am the power plant
this is my polluted sky

with thanks for the sweet comments on my last submission, i offer up this up. wrote it yesterday, tweaked it this morning. professor price teaches my poetry in performance class - which is not a writing workshop, mind you - and is the man who circled my poem (specifically What's More Important) and wrote 'no,' as well as other helpful comments like "prosy" and "distant" and "gobbledygook." and no, these aren't fragments of comments, they're the comments in their entirety. he's a self-professed "blues" poet, so i tried to do him some "homage."

in the end, he's a guest lecturer, so i really don't give a damn. i just needed to respond to the outrageousness of his critique and out came this.

besides, now i'm really good at spelling gobbledygook.

enjoy!