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This job is not suitable for those with
experience of light excavation

We are not looking for
amateur
archaeologists
with your little hammers going tippy tap tap

Metal detectorists need not apply

And we are not interested
in weekend spelunkers
with your fancy flashlights and your energy bars

The ideal candidate will know how to operate
earth augers and trenching machines

Training in gravedigging will be provided

You will have achieved the relevant qualifications
in pipe jacking, microtunnelling
impact moling and guided boring

Demolition techniques are a must
and do you know how
to work a crushing machine?

Interviews will be held soon
in the bunker
Would you be my shoebox
a sturdy contraption, pleasingly
geometrical and versatile
able to cradle our heavy hearts
and hide all kinds of secrets

I could be your carpet
you can walk all over me
as I protect you from the cold
the unvarnished truth and its splinters

Or I could be your socks and shoes
you can walk around in me all
day all snug and warm at least
until they need replacing
around this time next year
abyss 23h
Shattered illusions.
Shattered hopes.
Shattered dreams.

A house with no structure
built from the remains of ruin.

A powerful soul
in a trembling body.

A house meant to fall.
A house that realized
it’s not a house at all -
just the memory of shelter
pretending to hold.

It asks,
"Then what am I?"

But no one answers.

And so,
what’s left
sinks into the soil,
quietly turning
back into earth.
Who are you when it all comes crashing down?
I read a book once-
a story so captivating I couldn’t put her down.
Her edges grew tattered, her pages creased.
I etched my name into her front cover
so long ago you can barely see it.
I recite her words to myself even when she isn't near,
My favorite pages covered in notes only in my mind because I'd never ruin her that way,
Her paper so worn,
it’s as if I sharpened a blade that now cuts my fingers,
simply because I refused to stop reading.
I read a book once-
a story so captivating
I couldn’t accept its ending,
so I reread her, again and again,
like my heart could change the ink.
I think it's time to read another book
Illuminate all that is dark within me,
Bioluminescent pathways leading to a wishing well.
Cast your farthing and close your eyes,
Hear your wish through your lungs,
Breathe it into the mana waters,
And see how in me lies the arcane,
A world tree in nerves and blood,
I take root like a tooth,
And sow for you in a garden—
Indiscriminate truth.
Don't forget your coin!
Do you want to see the sunrise over the sky
Like tangerine orange splashed against a sea of peach and lilac?
Well I know a place where we can watch the moon flirt with the daylight
Just take my hand, and I’ll guide you through a wonderland

Where we can see the stars,
Bloom from the verdant stems
Pink and white spread wide,
And we can touch the petals of its points
Feel the dew drops hydrate your fingertips
Once we go through the thick of this

Watch the peonies open their bloom
Fluffy maroon and white beds for bees
As they sit so beautifully,
Ants resting on the eaves of leaves
Pleased by their workmanship to please
Eager eyes in your gasping maw
So surprised, to see this in awe
Well I surmise, you’ll love the way that the colors gleam.

Here where dahlias dance
To the very brisk of a morning breeze
Perfect symmetry blossomed in telemetry
We can count the layers, lost in a labyrinth
Amazed by the scent carried by a zephyr
Ticking the senses, and yet there’s more to the journey
As hydrangeas in blue and pink flourish,
Bush cover for arboreal critters,
Grasping seed and nuts to scurry off into the umbra.

But nothing brings me clarity
Nothing screams sincerity
Quite like the tea leaf rarity,
Of the conclave of peach colors swirling
Timeless in a capsule of a lover’s first gift
A painted, watercolor masterpiece,
Pink layers over yellow, and white,
Shades of coral and purple highlight the light
It’s in this decadence I could eat the petals
And in recompense maybe I’ll bloom as pretty too
As we end our morning glory
Under the thorn-capped bushel
Of roses, ala peach swirls.
Peach Swirl roses are just stunning to look at. I wanted to write something fun and hopeful, about the love of nature and how I feel every morning walking through my flower portion of my garden.
He'll hold his cup close while she

drips
          drips
                   drips

Impatiently he'll warm her,
filling his cup

Faster
          Faster
                    Faster

Back into the ocean she goes,
He is already gone.
Everyone wants to melt a glacier
Until they have a natural disaster
on their hands.
Reece 4d
One day, I met the Wendigo,
It told me things that I’d rather not have known.
My family asked me, “Where did it go?”
Who was I to tell?
It visited me later that night,
It gave me quite a fright,
It said, “Scream and I guarantee you won’t survive!”
So I closed my mouth and didn’t dare rebel.
It told me,
“People hunt what they don’t understand,
They can’t even decide who they want to be.
They act like they have this massive plan,
But in reality, they’re afraid of becoming a nobody like me!”
I asked meekly,
“What do you mean?”
It snarled its teeth,
And said to me,
“Some people believe that identity,
Is solely based on how they feel.
But it also has to do with society,
And the people they are around,
And how they are seen,
Not just what they believe.
They think that they can hide,
From the person they try to bury,
Under estranged beliefs,
So they consume whoever they see,
Who doesn’t believe their facade,
And they become like me.”
The Wendigo left,
Quiet as a mouse.
I set up on my bed,
And contemplated the truth I found.
I am me,
But when I talk down to myself,
Try to believe I’m worth less than everyone else,
That isn’t my identity,
That’s an askew belief.
Identity isn’t solely based on me…
A more metaphorical poem than I usually do, but I wanted to branch out a little.
You gild my haunted mind like Carnegie's ghost
A shining parenthesis for brass-poisoned dreaming.
I wish I could reach my rhizomes through time like you do--
          or space, even!
I want to watch you do anything.
  Fill a Passchendaele shell-hole with
  your triumphant tears; heal it, like it's easy.
I want to watch you do anything
  Stretch your Mud & Slush smile from the Esplanade-Riel
  across Minnesota and then right through me.

Reframe my failings, won't you?
(If that's what you think they are)
Or rewire my frowning night times, at least?
Spread me thin across your time, if you like;
but let me have some.

Find some worth, won't you?, in my fraying wires
  my decaying lines of code,
  my fear of success?

I have only my vagueness, and banks of bad metaphors
to measure against the tradewinds you blow across my minute bow.
You are such victory, such mighty reaching.
     Don't fault me my anxiety.
Lisa 5d
I dust the cloth till knuckles may burn,
Fold creases sharp the way they learn.
No one taught me how to wait,
But I do know how to set a plate.

Each year, I dress the table bare,
As if someone might notice a special type of care.
The kind tucked where no one ever looks,
Between all the spoons and brittle hooks.

I pull the chairs out, just a touch,
Not too inviting, never much.
They say you’re brave, to sit alone.
I say it’s worse to have them phone.

And still I press the linen white,
The wax rings ghosting from last night.
I never blow the candles out,
They die like most things, slow with doubt.

You learn to time the silence well,
To sip from cups that never swell.
They’ll say it slipped, or that they meant,
But silence makes the best cement.

I’m not unloved. Don’t twist the thread.
I just set rooms they don’t call red.
It’s not a scream. It’s just a mark,
like ash on cloth when flames go dark.
So I prepare, as I was taught,
And claim the echo as my spot.
No song, no slice, no box or bow,
Just me, and dust, and what they don’t know.
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