GOLD Poetry Winner — 2018 Teen Media Expo

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© Lisa Ridings | Fantommst – “Small Dragon”

lizard

Winds abrade, footsteps pulse to
a telluric rattlesnake beat, as i
ascend through sandstone, gypsum,
cactus spines and clay

Parched totems in a waterless sea
i dream of lizards under a tectonic spell,
memories of godless nights, lost beginnings,
coyotes beneath the ichorous gaze of
the moon
_________________
KD Matheson is an artist, painter, sculptor and digital media creator now living in Las Vegas, NV (US).

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Art by ZO Featured Artist: John W. Davis IV

Golden sunrise
Gave birth to my ancestors.
And they ask,
“Have you seen the rainbow children?”

Soul group calling
Chords of light!
Veils are thinning,
There is no time.

Planets are aligning to your sol center

And they say,
“Can you hear the poles shifting?”

Disruption;
Convergence.

Corruption;
Soul Emergence.

The alchemist wills gold!

And the Earth shakes,
A God creates.

And so it is.

_________________________

Artist Statement

For Kine Fall, art is all about looking past the mundane into the unseen aspects of life. Her goal is to shed light upon the power we individually hold to create our reality.

“For too long I have allowed my own mind to hold me prisoner. Remaining trapped and discouraged by fear and self-doubt. Looking and finding only the same options over and over again, until I found myself in the trenches of heartache. The courage to let go and step into my divinity was a result of constantly giving myself therapy through writing and the arts. It is my purpose to bring this healing to those around me. To magnetize the feeling of complete oneness and gratitude for all that is through my work and help others transcend the limitations they set for themselves.” — Kine

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Unkempt grass
supports our weight —
bouncing back after our swollen
feet climb further still for the highest point we can reach.

It prickles, so
our arches covet the swaying grass,
long in the early summer,
browned
by the nibbling of
birds.

My toes
can’t grab hold —
the dirt slipping through gaps,
roots pulling loose from the soiled
unsteady ground.

Your hands,
stronger next to my raw skin —
gashed open patterns
patch my arms with
shadows of the
folds in sheets
wrestling with feet.

We aim for
the shade of a fig tree.

We could be
in the shade of a fig tree.

My shoe
tumbles down the dew
dropped mountain,
hitting
the paint-chipped
fence reverberating
our reminder.
_________________________
Rachel Miskei is a recent college graduate, with a Bachelor’s degree in English, Creative Writing from Loyola Marymount University. “When nature and dreams merge with my writing, I have found my refuge, my calm amidst this chaotic heart.” Rachel —

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if we belong

Portrait: Guillaume Luisetti – “It’s Right Here”

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Art © Teunis Swart

1.

Seed underground, out springs
from its blueprint a flower, scented

ruby rose climbs out of sepal’s protective stem
connected to this stable base, her petals

wrap independently side by side
as time and wind, tear them apart

2.

molecules interlink like magician’s rings, transform
from bound to free to bound to free

travel dimensions, mutate from
mind into body into mind into body

sparkle in space flash and slowly disperse explode
into sight out of sight into sight out of sight

Bobbi S. Rudin is a graduate of the MA program in Mythology and Depth Psychology from Pacifica Graduate Institute and is also a Certified Holistic Health Coach specializing in mindful creative living. Her poetic writings are published in The Muse: An International Journal of Poetry (Vol. 3. Issue 2), Contemporary Poetry: An Anthology of Present Day Best Poems, a chaos of angels, Kali’s Kites Essays from the Mythological Imagination, San Gabriel Valley Poetry Quarterly (Issue 65 Winter 2015), and between: Pacifica Graduate Institute Literary Review Journal. Her poetry book Testament: A Poetic Journey Thru the Cycles of Life is available at Amazon.

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I Remain

When I was a kid, I wanted to be the wind.
I thought what was this beautiful being that was so strongly able to be felt, but never seen.
She traveled countries, knew nothing of borders, blockades, visas.
She saw all the wonders of the world, carried smiling faces, cries of newborn babies, joy,
happiness, childish giggles and jokes.
She attended everyone’s weddings and tasted every pie on every counter top.
She delivered the kisses of loved ones and the dreams of all.

But today she mourns- she carries screams of horror.
She yells in my ears and awakens every earthly being dead or alive.
She has called upon the sun to dim her rays and the clouds to join her in mourning.
She beckons the leaves, the grass and every organism in existence to shout and they reply.
The people run inside, shut their windows, they cannot understand why the earth is yelling- why
she is crying.
It is just too loud to handle.
Too real to fathom.

But even inside, the wind pounds on their doors and shatters their windows.

As she continues to voice her fury upon the coma state of the world,
a putrid smell of blood and tears rips through your nasal passages.
While the world paces indoors in fear and confusion,
I join my friend the wind outside, dressed in black and with nothing more than a kaffiya made of
honor and anger to keep me warm.
Despite the ear piercing screams of the earth, I sit and stay,
because today she is the only one who understands.
___________________________________

Hebatullah Issa is a Palestinian-Arab-American-Muslim-Israeli. “My experiences have shaped my identity, however, while working on my Master’s thesis at Dartmouth College, I found that my identity also shaped my experiences. My thesis, Metaphorical Asthma: The Search for Water and Answers in the Holy Land, developed into an ethnographic series of personal essays concerning the different identities and shifting labels imposed on me by others and how these labels shaped my experience trying to research water management issues in the West Bank. This sparked my interest in identity formation amongst Palestinians, particularly the diaspora.

At Dartmouth College, as well as during my second Master’s in Middle East and Islamic Studies from the University of Exeter, I have conducted research in the following topics: heritage making, Israeli historiography, language death, Orientalism, Occidentalism, the Palestinian right of return, ethno–politics, identity formation, Arab-American beauty ideals, Arab-American hip-hop, Palestinian feminist movements, Egyptian nationalism, factors of violent and nonviolent revolutions in the Arab Spring, particularly Egypt and Libya. I have also taken short courses in which I conducted research in the universality of human rights, the labeling of the Arab Spring, honour killings, migration and economy, Zionist media, as well as Arab feminist literature.

I recently produced a 153–page document about Palestinian identity formation amongst the Palestinians living in Israel through the medium of Palestinian hip-hop and what this identity means for Israel if its Arab citizens identify themselves as Palestinians rather than Israelis. I have also written fiction and nonfiction pieces centered on this topic as well.”

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