Published in Overland Issue 209 Summer 2012 · Uncategorized transit of venus Marty Hiatt standing on top of the helicopter counting the bristles of my toothbrush i look down but not back for with precision instruments we’re raked a vision of my next career move pins my eyes but it turns out to be just another thundercloud to hack through like one more enemy toad gliding past black n red wreckages in whose erstwhile spans we’re serried as one — whether baggage attendant pilot or stag beetle we kiss one another’s lofty bitumen with creaking lips my lust for diesel is becoming a problem n water’s too hard though other possible arcs are continually amassing like almond milk or intratelluric menses that help me through the dilation of the monsoon season lulled by so many engines n alien dialects about the garbage press the circular koan foreseen by the oracle composes itself trips on a splattered helmet pronouncing radio static that implores me to return to my neglected duties to world’s best practice rooftop dining, silt deposits n jubilant mastication mammoth concerns devour one another in the lagoon i’ll have to leave the slack-water revert to aerobic status even as the advancing front engulfs what little oxygen i’d extracted n carried through suns set at 9am after peak hour broke its banks damaging conveyors n other infrastructure it is time to pick up my thighs from the dry-cleaners. no cash so steam torture in its stead platoons flush by too quick to indict though silken families stranded on the pontoon compliment my figure, at once offering their condolences n implying the loss was worth it all told but their countenances turn with my shoulder in the application window tread on the heads of the buoyant while distilling new perfumes to compliment the scum of enslavement i frankly didn’t lack a post (i’ve blades) but to run with the exhumed midst manifolds lengthens the spinal casing improves bee fertility n at time of writing no synthetic substitute has yet appeared on the open market then so spruced, break left, set course for high-voltage transmission lines for the great axis has at last been precisely determined. they’re winking as adult themes in children’s books but to whom? so am i: not even the blind could miss em Marty Hiatt Marty Hiatt is a Melbourne poet currently based in Berlin. More by Marty Hiatt › Overland is a not-for-profit magazine with a proud history of supporting writers, and publishing ideas and voices often excluded from other places. If you like this piece, or support Overland’s work in general, please subscribe or donate. Related articles & Essays 19 April 2024 · Friday Fiction Stilted J.E “Mahal” Cuya One hour after midnight. Everyone in rooms. Living room – dark. Table look like monsters. Like death. TV on stand. Netflix Logo. No one watching. Residents asleep. They have dementia. 18 April 202418 April 2024 · Education A Jellyfish government in NSW: public education’s privatisation-by-neglect Dan Hogan A private school that receives public money is not a private school: it is a fee-paying public school. The overfunding of private schools using public money is a symptom of a public service that has been rotted for a quarter of century by a political class with no vision beyond producing dubious, misleading statistics to deploy at the next election.