XPI Student Showcase
Welcome to Xpress Plugged In, our new online gallery of student expressions. Please follow the submission instructions CAREFULLY. New work will be posted every Monday.
-- Nancy Green, editor of XPI
Selections for the Week of 1/03/2011
Spotlight on Admiral Farragut Academy,
St. Petersburg
Work of Art, digital photograph
Allyson Puckett, ninth grade
The Sleeping Street
As the street sleeps it lives
and I feel like I'm a baby
living in a hospice crib.
Strangers come and go
but all the strangers know
my own gruesome past.
Zeke Handelman, ninth grade
The Colorful Guardian
I'm stranded on an island where vast seas surround.
I trudge through the deep rain forest, ferreting for the beach,
my clothes torn and tattered like my ambition.
The monkeys howl at me in disgust, insects sound in resentment,
my footsteps pound with my heart.
Various vines and leaves obstruct the sunlight;
I notice several frogs laughing together at my predicament:
They possess the same pessimism I've learned to cope with.
Suddenly a colorful bird lands on my shoulder;
a sliver of light shines through a leaf onto my pale face.
I race to the brightness excitedly with the bird on my shoulder:
To the beach at last.
I gaze to my left shoulder, but the bird has vanished.
"Thank you," I whisper into the forest to the bird.
Gray Oates, ninth grade
Asphalt and Ice Cream
The smell of asphalt and ice cream
The wind in my hair
As I go a record-breaking five miles per hour
The road belongs to me and my big wheel
With its streamers flying.
Others stop and stare
Its magnificence is too great
The red and yellow body
And, of course, the big wheel on the Big Wheel.
My ice cream drips down my hand
I eat it as I ride
My puppy trots alongside me
With the smell of asphalt and ice cream.
Miriam Cone, eighth grade
Blurred Reflection, digital photograph
Allyson Puckett, ninth grade
Love Always, Mother Nature
I am the one who cares for your day,
sprinkling a little rain of joy
Or whispering a gentle, soft breeze
over the calm ocean seas.
And maybe a delicate sunny day
can delight you in every single way.
But sometimes my frustration takes over
and wraps my air-filled arms around anything possible.
I shake with fierce anger,
creating large cracks and indentions in the land.
Do you feel the rush when I serve you high-speed winds,
or sting you with flaming lightning bolts and rock you with thunder?
But after the storm, there is nothing but silence,
because my work here is done.
I have the power,
'cause I always will be,
Mother Nature.
Claudia Pizzarelli, ninth grade
Funnel of Death
I bolt down the deserted road
sprinting for my life.
I can hear the roar of the winds behind me
coming closer and closer.
The funnel of death chases me.
The sky turns darker and darker
as I run past the endless fields.
Lightning crashes down
with deafening roars of thunder.
It seems like a nightmare.
There is no hope for me now.
I feel it pulling me closer
as I desperately try to escape its grasp.
It pulls me in with arms of wind,
sealing my terrible fate.
Adam Burrell, ninth grade
Two Worlds
Welcome to a world of balance and peace.
Here we have our assortment of healthy trees with chirping birds.
To our right, we have the sweet melody of waves touching the shore.
On our left, we have large mounds of ice with innocent creatures.
Our program here is very delicate;
Keeping the serenity of this palace comes with a warning,
A warning to handle with caution.
Let me show you a place without care.
Welcome to a world of madness and mayhem.
Here we have a forest that has caught on fire, with sorrowful deaths.
To our right, we have ferocious tsunamis thundering on whatever land they can poison.
On our left, we have glacial disasters ramming together.
You said you didn't believe me.
If you would like to fiddle with my balance,
You will receive the gift of destruction.
However, it's up to you;
I pray for you to choose wisely
Sara Casagrande, ninth grade
Will You Be There When the Sun Goes Down?, digital photo
Allyson Puckett, ninth grade