PUBLIC SAFETY Updates

So today I posted new work by Aaron & Sarah. Give them feedback! I've also received two more solicited manuscripts: well done people!!

I added Daytrotter on the LINKS section, as well as Duotrope, CrimethInc. & PENNsound, where you can find the actual recordings of Jack Spicer's Vancouver lectures that we talked about briefly the first week. What are these sites you say?? GO FIND OUT! That's why the links page is there.

See you all tonight...

Poem by Aaron Awkerman

Don’t say it can’t be caught
By Aaron Awkerman


I’m running straining my body to go faster
Harder-to the horizon and the next
Around me, on me, in me are purples and reds
The sun is painting a picture-a dream?
I must keep running

PLEASE

Keep running. If you do it’ll never stop
The colors, so rich and creamy
Like strawberry ice cream in the skies
Like the warm blushing of a lover
Like a sunrise reflected on a cherry
That is why you mustn’t tire or give up

NO NO FASTER

The colors are paler fainter and further away now
As if we’re looking through a smoky glass
Please Lord give me wings so that I may fly
No why why is it falling? My beautiful sun
It’s too late
I’ve failed to keep up with the sunset.

Poem by Sarah Elgatian

if it really mattered
why bother?

i wont say that i am
anything i am not

i often feel trapped
sticky, thorned spiderwebs
attatch me to my surroundings
and you people just sit and stare

thats okay.
i've been here, done this before
i'll live past your juvenile bullshit

what i really want
is for you to stop getting in my face
with your lies
and whips
i'm not a masochist
not that you care
i just thought i'd mention it

if you dont know me
don't pretend you do
don't be righteous and mean
i dont do that to you

Piece by Sam Garrison

Gag Order

Julie ate her French fries without ketchup and wondered why she never asked for those little travel packets. She didn’t like to inconvenience the drive-through girl, but isn’t that her job? To give driver’s ketchup packets while they’re on the go? No, their job is to man the drive through and take orders. Take orders—for ketchup. Then why did it feel so whiny to just ask? Julie had worked in fast food, she knew ketchup packets were the least of a drive-through operators worries. But, Julie remembered, sometimes ketchup packets were just another stupid demand to make the drive-through girl feel like complete dirt. Or even less. She didn’t think of herself as degrading the girl behind the window, but sometimes taking people’s every demand for only minimum wage was more demeaning than walking naked into a crowd of horny teen-age boys. Granted, her mouth was really dry, and ketchup usually helped. The fries were tasteless, but she didn’t expect more. Either way, she was starting to fret, reliving the brief intercourse with the drive-through girl, making sure everything she said was courteous, friendly, and uplifting. She did ask for the straw after dropping her quarter—what if she sounded too frazzled? Panicking as she bit into one of her dry fries, Julie gasped, then choked. Coughing and continuing to panic, she couldn’t reach her drink or think to pull to the side of the road. The last thing Julie saw before her coma was a set of headlights from a Ford F-150 coming in the opposite direction.