10 February 202322 February 2023 Poetry / Friday Poetry Poetry | Inflorescence Jo Langdon ‘So work, work, and more work’ —Wisława Szymborska History or myth—picture tulip bulbs, unburied like onions. An onion is the likeness Hepburn —in Gardens of the world— proffers in the purr & lilt of vowel, halt of consonant; annunciation that lifts ready from memory the mises-en-scène of gulped marbles—Eliza D’s triumph in rise & soar of voice, ‘I can do / without you—’ ‘Don’t speak; don’t waste my time / show me!’ An onion too is what the PM of then opens his jaw onto, mouth into brown paper skin & wet flesh: lunar glow & crunch of white, translucent in allusions to green—& this seems wasteless, at least: the peel intact & taken in. The onion hasn’t a centre to reach, stone core to touch with any tooth / knife / nail— I didn’t know, before the poems’ work, how Audrey’s voice for Eliza was dubbed, sometimes doubled; the ghost singer credited barely if at all. How from this a whole ghost chorus lifts in each point of silence & of speaking over— / Where thought holds some enjambment, wanting as desire or lack— / The poem won’t work towards cohesion, skirts by verb each point of focus. Only this resolve of wanting, present in each sense—this stretch of here & gift that reaches for & out-wards, on— Jo Langdon Jo Langdon lives and writes on unceded Wadawurrung land. She is the author of two poetry collections, Snowline (Whitmore Press, 2012) and Glass Life (Five Islands Press, 2018), and was a 2018 Elizabeth Kostova Foundation fiction writing fellow. Her recent writing is also published in journals including Cordite, Island, Meanjin, Overland and Rabbit. More by Jo Langdon 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 First published in Overland Issue 228 3 March 20233 March 2023 Poetry Poetry | 2 rat poems by joanne burns joanne burns the courtyard rat squatting on an empire of pizza boxes rainsoaked piles of stewing cardboard flattened packaging from long covid's eager merchandise anything to transcend an unimagined plague rat traps line the walls like doctors' obsolete portmanteaux from a much earlier decade 8 First published in Overland Issue 228 1 February 20233 February 2023 Reviews This is where the rat bastard poem comes in Dan Hogan Rats will be found wherever nonsense presented as sense becomes the authority. Such is the cornerstone of anything organised along lines of capital: bureaucracies, workplace hierarchies, real estate, aspiration culture, institutions, ruling class artifice, governments, etcetera. Wherever there is capital there are rats—hoarding creatures, capital’s henchmen.