Published in Overland Issue Print Issue 198 Autumn 2010 · Writing / Main Posts Disquisition on Home Ryan Scott A fly kindly punctuates the table cloth before moving to remedy the syntax of a wall, a banana, a door knob … my lip. And the sun is more presence than detail. Unlike, say, the dark which remains a tease and knows its place. Light here invades lines. Colour has no room. My hands confuse themselves with the sand but not the trees; too dry to weep, they can only wait. A magpie gargles the air. That bird is the one fear from childhood I keep for comfort. Still, it’s more intelligent than most creatures. Pollsters should ask for its opinion, while grammarians should study where that fly lands, see if it finds words for its pedantic self. You and I would argue over the significance of each position. Sorry, you’d say, ‘You and I’. Maybe, we should take this inside. Ryan Scott Ryan Scott lives in the Czech Republic. His poems have appeared in a number of journals and websites in Australia and overseas. More by Ryan Scott › 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 11 December 202411 December 2024 · Writing The trouble Ken Bolton’s poems make for me, specifically, at the moment Linda Marie Walker These poems doom me to my chair and table and computer. I knew it was all downhill from here, at this age, but it’s been confirmed. My mind remains town-size, hemmed in by pine plantations and kanite walls and flat swampy land and hills called “mountains”. 4 October 202418 October 2024 · Main Posts Announcing the Nakata Brophy Prize for Young Indigenous Writers 2024 longlist Editorial Team Sponsored by Trinity College at the University of Melbourne and supporters, the Nakata Brophy Prize for Young Indigenous Writers, established in 2014 and now in its ninth year, recognises the talent of young Indigenous writers across Australia.