Written 7th August, 2026 for This Or That, Vol. 40 Poetry Contest sponsored by Edward Ibeh
Formatting using John Anderson's program.
They bring their heavy iron to my quiet, ancient skin. They map my hidden veins with a cold and seismic thud, searching for the black gas trapped deep within my marrow. A mile below the burning light, they crack my oldest stone, shattering the silent architecture of the subterranean dark. They pump their bitter sand and venom deep inside my faults, a toxic, chemical flood to force the narrow fractures wide. I am forced to bleed my ancient, steady pressure out to them. The fossil rain I held in secret for a million quiet years is drawn up through the choking steel, leaving me to dry. My underground lungs begin to fail beneath the weight. Above the surface, the sacred mound springs slowly close. The dreaming water that fed the elders ceases to arrive. The white salt pan hums with the heat and biting flies. The blind mulga roots reach down but find only dust. I no longer have the strength to push up to the light. The red clay buckles inward, inch by creeping inch, a quiet, tragic collapse beneath the burning sun. My subterranean vaults and catacombs are caving in. The memory of water is quickly baking into clay. I am completely hollowed out by their machines. My history is swallowed in a sudden, violent void. The terrible weight of gravity begins its heavy pull. A slow sink into the center of the aching earth. There is nothing left below to hold the surface up. The dry dirt collapses inward on itself. Empty, ruined chambers begin to sigh. I have no more breath to give them. Only shattered, sinking stone. Falling into the deep dark. A silent, empty chasm. Swallowed whole. Falling dust Slowly Sinks Down
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