Published in Overland Issue 211 Winter 2013 · Uncategorized Vietnam ritual Barry ODonohue Sitting in the primordial light of jungle each day I placed a finger on my forehead, then on my chest where the bullet would strike. Then I would rest the palm of each hand on my knees, soon to be blown away by a Russian mine, and watch the smoke from my Marlborough drift into the tangled vines and rain forest trees as if the world were on fire and the world was a small place. We’d get up then, in single file, me breaking through the wall being the first, being the scout. At night starts struggled through the high canopy pin points against the dark and I would curse the nature of my flesh for it was intact, not torn apart. I slept in a scrape hole on the jungle floor, my grave, knowing that tomorrow I would perform that wretched ritual again, where the bullet would strike, or my limbs blasted against trees. Now I am young but in old flesh. I gave up smoking. What doesn’t kill you . . . The marks on my forehead and chest are stigmata, knees gone to titanium, and all the stars that were then and are now have gone in to their own war, galaxies to the north. Barry ODonohue Barry O'Donohue is a Brisbane-based poet who has been writing for 40 years. More by Barry ODonohue › 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 4 October 2023 · Reviews She’s not high-functioning, she’s just Emily Dickinson: Clara Törnvall’s The Autists Phoebe Lupton Autistic women and genderqueer people are historically underrecognised and underrepresented. Fortunately, this is starting to change, at least in the literary sphere. In the past two years, readers have been blessed by books from Clem Bastow, Hannah Gadsby, Emma A. Jane, Grace Tame, Dr. Sandra Thom-Jones and Chloé Hayden, to name a few — autistic women and genderqueer people who have written memoirs that either reference or centre their experiences of their intersecting gender and neurological identities. 1 First published in Overland Issue 228 2 October 20233 October 2023 · Aboriginal Australia The use and abuse of History in the Voice referendum debate: an interview with Professor Gary Foley Gary Foley and Padraic Gibson I can see the failure of the referendum making a whole lot of Blackfellas sit up and think and realise again, what we realised back in ’67, that our best efforts to achieve our aims are always at our own behest, under our own control. A whole new generation of Black activists deciding hang on, to hell with the rest of them, let’s just focus on our own communities and start building up the strength of our own communities.