Art Trek is having their first Teen Writing Workshop!
Click the flyer below to sign-up!
CSU Channel Islands student, Justin Dover will be leading the workshop. He mostly enjoys writing fiction but he couldn't help being inspired by the unique environment of an arcade he used to frequent.
Below is his poem "Giving No Quarter" which was published in The Island Fox -Literary Journal 2014 from CSU Channel Islands.
Giving No Quarter by Justin Dover
Convex screens send flashes
of flickering colored illumination
casting long low shadows
like searchlight beams
piercing the darkest of midnights
Clamoring beats of rock and techno
blast overhead, mocking
the compressed artificial sound
that filters through speakers
housed within the plastic arcade cabinet shells.
The barbed smell of Tobacco
floats in through weightless vines of twisting smoke
prickling nostrils like a furious blow
whose ferocity has knocked sight and smell
into the realm of obscurity.
A sour, sweet taste of modern monsters
and chocolate caffeinated coffee
brings liquid relief to the dry desert cavern
that lies hidden behind the bilabial articulators
sharpening both mind and reflexives to their finest
points.
The rigged clicks of joysticks and buttons
can only be experienced through
the tactile sensation of palm and fingers
as they create choreographed matching movement
within
the pixelated paintings that exist in the virtual space
behind each monitor.
In this place we are immersed in
these entertaining engagements,
hoping to keep the rights to our silver faced
Washington's.