Published in Overland Issue 213 Summer 2013 Uncategorized I didn’t know your eyes were blue Mark Mordue It’s possible to forget a lot of things in the fullness of time: My father’s eyes, the pale intensity of distance, how it all began. I’m sleeping badly now. Dirt on a coffin, a credit card, loneliness, Poetry streaming through my head, a disarranged message That never has an end, am I writing it or having seizures? We are all electric. I sense holes in my chest, panic in half hour moments, Sun and shadow, the motion of leaves outlined through a window And cast upon a kitchen floor adding up to something warm. I can’t stop hugging my children and brushing their hair with my fingertips, Saying things that don’t sound right to strangers, As if I have slipped out of myself and away, Leaving a fragmented self like those night poems of incoherence and sorrow And panic and love: death comes in spasms. Missing my father and being a father: I think this must be what tears are like for me. Blue electric tears from the mind’s eye falling over time forever. Mark Mordue Mark Mordue is a writer, journalist and editor working internationally. He is a co-winner of the 2014 Peter Blazey Fellowship, which recognises an outstanding manuscript in the fields of biography, autobiography or life writing. More by Mark Mordue 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 30 January 202331 January 2023 History On class as a product of struggle Jared Davidson An understanding of class as a relationship and a process, and the expanded terrain of class struggle that comes with it, has the potential to unearth or reappraise key events and narratives in our colonial pasts. First published in Overland Issue 228 27 January 202331 January 2023 Cartoons In attacking us, they bring us together Sam Wallman 'What these bosses don't understand is that in attacking us, they bring us together.' (Paddy Crumlin, Maritime Union of Australia, Svitzer Rally November 2022)