There’s a reason October and November have been slow blogging months here at Pedestrian Chronicles: I’ve been in a fugue state all fall writing poems.
After I landed at National Airport (fuck no no no Ronald Reagan) for my DC Thanksgiving this week, I sat down at a table in the empty food court plaza and emailed the collection to a bunch of friends before hopping on the Metro.
Subject: Poems for Thanksgiving 2017
From: Josh Feit <jfeitinwords@gmail.com>
Date: Wed, November 22, 2017 10:02 pmHey All You Protest Kids,
Many of you have heard me talking about this set of poems I’ve been writing.It’s all true. I was already spinning in this historic year when Charlottesville punctuated the story line. All of a sudden, I started writing poem after poem. The idea was to dramatize daily city life, city planning, and a proud cosmopolitan bias in the larger context of 2017’s scary turn toward authoritarian politics.The result wasn’t just a pro-city critique of Trump. It also turned into a pro-city critique of Seattle’s own reactionaries. (Some personal mis/adventures are chronicled here as well!–the last 12 months have been a lot–and my intent was to connect that stuff to the city themes.)
When I shared some early drafts with a few of you, a couple of folks said the poems seemed kinda blue. Totally! The setting for these poems is melancholy.
But some jiu-jitsu,
the “Opposite Hex,”
is in here too.Happy Thanksgiving. And thanks.
P.s. Putting poetry online can mess with the formatting. Making sure your screen is set wide is the best way to keep the original formatting intact.
I started hyping the release by posting snippets from the poems every few days on FB starting back on November 6.
If you cross H.G. Wells’ The Time Machine with H.G. Wells’ The Crystal Egg (that’s the short story where the Martian stares back at the Earthling through the intergalactic looking glass), you’d know the other reason I search for videos on YouTube … #OppositeHex… Drops 11/22/17
Networks? Nations? There are no allegories, only results: Chicago 1955,
a hit with white youth and black youth alike … #OppositeHex …Drops 11/22/17
And this is an accurate drunken account: Suddenly,
I saw petals on my counter top.
The new house plants were blossoming … #OppositeHex …Drops 11/22/17
Stop being Steve Bannon, Seattle
The astronomic appreciation of your home
is displacing more people than the mysterious Chinese
or was it the Californians? The Transylvanians?
Your investment isn’t more authentic than theirs. Stop being Steve Bannon, Seattle. …#OppositeHex …Drops 11/22/17
Whisked away on Wisconsin
& M
into decades of decibel night …
#OppositeHex …Drops 11/22/17
The perfect ratio of frozen blueberries to three tablespoons of carob powder… #OppositeHex …Drops 11/22/17
The utopian reactionaries are speechless… #OppositeHex …Drops 11/22/17
Johnny Rotten Shoes/says she’s a flâneuse … #OppositeHex …Drops 11/22/17
It was a weekend mission to buy expensive ties in Soho,
with Cosmic Lee as expert witness… #OppositeHex …Drops 11/22/17
My pal has already added Transit Oriented Drinking, which means sneaking summer Frozés onto the bus… #OppositeHex …Drops 11/22/17
Three cheers, to double decks and probiotic light/rooftops of the world unite… #OppositeHex …Drops 11/22/17
Saturday night’s biomass shish kebab cinders… #OppositeHex …Drops 11/22/17
I have hours of samples that no one else has… #OppositeHex … Drops 11/22/17
This was the summer of Charlottesville, when we all became protagonists… #OppositeHex …Drops 11/22/17
The Pedestrian Chronicles 