The Secret Stead is the pen name of a UK-based writer and
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Excavation
shit is a part of the human condition
the archaeologist knows
she really shouldn't be here
standing on the ledge of tomorrow
looking down at the past
excavation at Myrmekion in Crimea,
the Russians have taken over
the ancient Greek site
known for winemaking and minting
gold coins linked to Alexander the Great,
she knows where there's money and alcohol
there'll certainly be human waste,
she grimaces at her student smoking a spliff
if the authorities get a whiff of that
there'll be in the shit with protocol, too
how did he manage to procure that?
the archaeologist thinks
there's a fucking war going on,
the shores of the Crimea
always invite the weak and strong,
she wouldn't mind a drag at a pinch
anxiety is a bitch she declares,
as she peers down into the pitch
war has scarred with its bite
hollowing out the secrets of the site,
her eyes glaze to her student's sheen
as she imagines this hidden soil
where Alexander's feet may have been
what the world was at that layer
what it still is two thousand years later
his death at thirty-two put an end
to his planned invasion of Arabia
his sudden loss at a palace in Babylon
started the era of the Hellene,
war and progression once hand in hand
now war regresses to the caveman,
the student coughs and grunts
shunts down thinking a drone flew past,
pulling up his loose jogger pants
she catches a glimpse of the hairy arse
almost stepping on a marker,
deep shit is the definer of her condition,
the fossilised kind speaks to her
from a distant past she can't hear,
today's warm wind speaks only of fear,
she smells something burning in the air
and it isn't her student's weed,
it's the breaking wind of war in her ear,
now she has to leave the past alone
for the sake of that fucking drone,
the present moment is too near to think
of ancient garbage that no longer stinks
policing her precious waste from men in war,
on the chase after dead men of war
for the hidden reason of the inhuman
dirt that tells her human thinking is no sphere,
or any linear outline to a margin
except how to marginalise
the categorised weak and the meek,
it makes her sick to her educated stomach,
but she knows the inner shores of the earth
always invited her to seek the strong
that marches through every century
to leave the waste she is trained to find,
for it's what we seem to leave most behind
in our violence and our wars
her hands sifts what the soil keeps stored,
she reveals its closeted skeletons
the unbidden pettiness of the mundane
the insanity of the sane forgotten
the archaeologist is the narrator
of our stories history tries to hide
in death what we hide in life:
Roman landlords renting out to tenants
for reasons other than a homeowner
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to frighten an unwanted customer:
wars so small in a deflated self,
the only wealth that remains
is the teeth of our skeletal disbelief
the archaelogist knows not a single gospel
documents this human condition:
humanity needs to shit to live
we'd all die without a dump
it's what makes the soil grow up
and what the worm needs to burrow,
it waits for us all to be interred
in one breath to lay out the truth,
playing Chinese whispers our history
gossips on the shores of inhumanity
Published 4 May, 2026
