> ## Content Index
> Fetch the complete content index at: https://dianaludwick.com/llms.txt
> Use this file to discover other available public pages before exploring further.

# Shredded
- URL: https://dianaludwick.com/shredded/
- Published: 2026-10-18T11:39:00.000Z
- Updated: 2026-10-24T20:04:24.000Z
- Description: “Shredded,” an experiential poem on reckoning with years of paper artifacts rendered acutely obsolete by the coming of a home renovation, written Sunday, October 18, 2026 poem 291 in a series of 365 poems written by Diana Ludwick in 2026. Photo: "Memories a Mile High" by Diana Ludwick © 2026.
- Author: Diana Ludwick
- Tags: 2026 Poetry Challenge, Current Events, Dry Humor, Ethnographical, Generational, Humor, Loosely Hinged, Material Culture, Of Place, Poems, Unserious, Archeological, Artifacts, Autumn, Books, Brick Walls, Cleaning, Cleaning Up, Desk, Detritus, Digs, Excavation, Fall, Farhenheit 451, Filing System, Free-Range, History, Home Office, Home Renovation, Horizontal Storage, Medical Records, Note Pads, Noteable Homework Pieces, October, Pandemmy, Partner Relations, Poems in Progress, Review for Relevancy, Strata, Winnowing, #Migrated-1792872215677, #wp, #wp-post, #Import 2026-10-24 20:03

My well-meaning partner   
tasks me   
with "cleaning up"   
my "papers" —   
the ones in my home office.  
  
As if it was a light task  
that one could do  
just   
like   
that.  
  
He bought me this   
six-foot-long  
wood-top standing desk  
during the pandemmy  
— when the four brick walls of our home  
had begun to crush in on us —  
for the sole purpose   
of containing me  
and my archeological strata  
of papers, note pads, books.  
  
  
And yet —  
as I enter my owl's nest,   
my study,  
six years post-vaccine,  
I reckon with wild strains of chaos  
that my loose paper stacks breed   
unmitigated by anything Pfizer   
nor Moderna could invent and bottle.  
  
My horizontal storage  
has reached its zenith;  
this free-range filing system  
must be addressed with haste.  
  
The wrecking ball is coming:  
it will rip through   
my fifty-year-old window wall  
and my vintage interior sheetrock  
  
And this force of deconstruction  
will arrive outside my window  
in but a few weeks' time  
with no discretion for thoughtful piles labeled:  
  
"Review for Relevancy";   
and "Poems in Progress";  
and "Bills - maybe?";   
and "Notable homework pieces"  
(I will not further clarify between self and offspring)  
and "holiday cards - find address and mail"   
(some from 2023, one from 2015);  
and half-written thank-you cards,   
address scratched out once, twice, thrice,   
representing a much-traveled relative   
who has yet to receive my birthday gratitude;  
and "Medical records from 2000-20."  
  
With little zest and much animus,  
I sit myself in the center   
of the wee nursery-turned-office  
and I dump every colored folder  
it their contents  
out onto the floor  
in a pile of unexagerable enormity  
keep the matches away  
Farhenheit 451   
could consume us all