Published in Overland Issue 258 2025 · Uncategorized Ex-landfill pastoral Mitchell Welch The Aussie raven plucks its musical ribcage and Blue Ribbon labels fly like white flags at the highest peak visible from the street. Milk bottle molars bite down on the sky from within this gingivitic heap. Roaches pop out gleaming, polished to a sheen from detergent bottles and Coca-Cola cans. The corax picking out its last flight feathers eyeballs the screw-top moon and buries its head in a wire nest festooned with lids. The real victims will be our kids. Ca-caw! Mitchell Welch Mitchell Welch is a writer and communications advisor from Queensland who has worked and lived in Brisbane, Melbourne, Hobart and the Gold Coast. His first book, Vehicular Man, was shortlisted for the Judith Wright Calanthe Award, and is available from Rabbit. More by Mitchell Welch › 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 18 May 202618 May 2026 · Militarisation Sacrificed for the Pentagon: on Australia’s “security” crisis Gwenaël Velge The connection between the Jarrah Forest, the submarine base, and the data centres is not metaphorical. It is the three pillars of AUKUS, made material in a single city. Pillar III strips the forest to supply aluminium and gallium to the other two pillars, gutting environmental and water security. 15 May 2026 · Friday Fiction The structure Dominic Carew We made it to the park by eight. The winter sun was filtering through the far trees in a wan, lemon trickle, the thin clouds sheets of white. The cool sky a rubbed-at blue. The grass squelched beneath our feet and elsewhere, thinned from wear, the earth stretched grassless and muddy and, in some parts, released a thick mist.
