Published in Overland Issue 204 Spring 2011 · Main Posts excluding guns and ammo Nathan Curnow lighting beacons upon the tops of silos sparrows fall like clods of dirt we update our blogs according to the contract and celebrate Christmas for cameras excluding guns and ammo you look beautiful tonight dumping bloated livestock into trenches the sun still wriggling in a radio sky always the threat of more children but we never ask how it came to this how some of us are immune to hanging we never admit to stabbing dolphins for music or to dining on the milk of weeds excluding guns and ammo you look beautiful tonight you don’t shake when the media comes can’t we talk about us as we flog the horses take a stab at life on the beach tree trunks humming like old transformers imagine spitting on the city wall or my chest remember how babies put dead moths to mouths the leg irons clean better with ash excluding guns and ammo you look beautiful tonight out there the shining bald opinions of men lighting the beacons ingesting grams of hunger the clods of dirt the tiny hearts Nathan Curnow is a poet, playwright and past editor of Going Down Swinging. His work features in Best Australian Poems 2008 and 2010 (Black Inc.) and his latest book The Ghost Poetry Project (Puncher and Wattmann) is based upon his stays at ten haunted sites around the country. A recipient of two Australia Council grants, his recent prizes include the Josephine Ulrick Poetry Prize and the FAW Di Cranston Award. © Nathan Curnow Overland 204−spring 2011, p. 122 Like this piece? Subscribe! Nathan Curnow Nathan Curnow lives in Ballarat and is a past editor of Going Down Swinging. His latest poetry collection is RADAR. More by Nathan Curnow › 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 28 March 20249 April 2024 · Main Posts Why we should value not only lived experience, but also lived expertise Sukhmani Khorana In the wake of this year’s International Day for the Elimination of Racial Discrimination, I want to extend the central idea of El Gibbs’s 2022 essay on 'lived expertise' and argue that in media accounts of racism, analytical expertise and lived experience ought to be valued together and even in the same body. 5 March 2024 · Main Posts Andrew Charlton’s school assignment Alex McKinnon Australia's Pivot to India exists for three reasons: so that when Andrew Charlton is interviewed on the radio or introduced on Q+A, his bio includes the phrase "he has written a book about Indian-Australian relations"; to fend off accusations that he is another Kristina Keneally engaging in electoral colonialism in western Sydney; and to help the Albanese government strengthen economic and military ties with Modi’s Bharatiya Janata Party.
