Here are a few more selected entries for the Bookninja Office Haiku competition. Next week I’ll make up a shortlist on which we can all vote. The winner will get a Bookninja t-shirt. I’ll take entries up until then. But it’s important that they be OFFICE-related — centrefielders and escorts are noble workers, but I want your dead-eyed, cubicle farm, mental stasis poems.

Accused of killing
the office jade plant with spite,
my boss memos me.

I drink black coffee
my boss at the door:
you get my memo?

I owe two dollars
for the weekly coffee pool,
twenty-five for the plant.

I have not emailed
regarding the office jade:
this staff is a team.

Today is Thursday.
I think it’s Friday: wear jeans–
subordination.

Dead plant, old coffee,
memos for staff softball games:
not a team player.

Strange apiary:
busy work, bookninja,
give notice at noon.

-Tammy Armstrong

She opens the file
I pluck a single white sheet
she winces, thanks me

She waits for copies
the machine drums and flashes;
I’m dancing inside.

-B.G. Rotchin

some poems are not for
Friday afternoon proofing
too much blood on hands

-Crissy Boylan

Day-timer

Lagavulin at noon
Lagavulin at two; work
is not so hard

-Chris Jennings

All day I edit
Words that nobody will read
And that includes me

Where is ‘le mot juste’?
I had it just this morning,
In perfect English

How often must I
Tell you? Impact is never
A transitive verb!

-Stephen Pigott

Every day, I take
The number 7 Dunbar
to work. Smells like pee.

*

Dear employee, due
to a change in infrastructure
we’re letting you go.

You’re letting me go?
I don’t think so. Not this year.
See my shop steward.

*

Stocking candy for
a union wage is awesome!
I have two degrees.

I have two degrees.
Yet, these sweatshirts need folding.
MFA’s conundrum.

*

Socialist asks: of
my two jobs: one paid, one not,
which should I prefer?

Capitalist says
A job with no pay…sounds great.
How do I hire you?

-Liz Bachinsky

Boredom ricochets
Softly off of fabricked walls
Almost waking me

-M. Black

The walls are colored
like the snot from pneumonia
that I’m not over.

This explains why we
identify with mucus
dried, flung behind things.

The blessing, though, is
that I occupy my mind
while I pick boogers.

-Stephen Fisk

Eff one, tab, escape
Unix database keystrokes
Infinite blank fields

-Heather Cromarty

Sixty hour work weeks -
now they want us to revise
the “Vision Statement”?

Hung over from last
night’s gig, ten a.m. photo shoot -
no business like it

-Art Norris

clock hands ticking round
slow and stilted second hand—
outside it is spring

-Kerry Clare

Your teacher is sick
Substitute your coke for gin
Please skip today’s class

-Kevin Herir

No cubicles here.
My door closed. No one bugs me.
I will never leave.

-Sharon McCartney