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 First published in Overland Issue 228 25 May 202326 May 2023 · Main Posts The ‘Chinese question’ and colonial capitalism in New Gold Mountain Christy Tan SBS’s New Gold Mountain sets out to recover the history of the Gold Rush from the marginalised perspective of Chinese settlers but instead reinforces the erasure of Indigenous sovereignty. Although celebrated for its multilingual script and diverse representation, the mini-TV series ignores how the settlement of Chinese migrants and their recruitment into colonial capitalism consolidates the ongoing displacement of First Nations peoples. First published in Overland Issue 228 15 February 202322 February 2023 · Main Posts Self-translation and bilingual writing as a transnational writer in the age of machine translation Ouyang Yu To cut a long story short, it all boils down to the need to go as far away from oneself as possible before one realizes another need to come back to reclaim what has been lost in the process while tying the knot of the opposite ends and merging them into a new transformation.
