Published in Overland Issue 213 Summer 2013 · Uncategorized Cloud burst Samuel Wagan Watson for TS Eliot Cloud burst, and another sky falls. A blight of sun causes all feather to lose flavour in the wind. But our children will still have their mobile phones and dial the clouds in angst of predator drones. The crows are gone and broken windows only catch the breaths of dying trees. No matter how sorry the horizon, a child’s foresight will always wonder of the beauty in a falling sky. ‘Look Mumma … a death bird!’ But Mumma doesn’t look at the sky since it has soured. Mumma takes a peg and pins a damp sheet to the flimsy clothes hoist. Mumma counts the kinks in the wire and measures her own life – line. ‘Mumma can’t look now baby, there may not be any sunlight tomorrow …’ And then Mumma takes the small child inside their shelter, abandoning the weathered fabric to subtly dance alone; it could be tomorrow’s death shroud? And this is the way the world ends, And this is the way the world ends, And this is the way the world ends. As the clouds quietly burst, Not with bang, but a lethal breeze. The sky is falling, ghosts take shelter in shadow and the air cries foul … Samuel Wagan Watson Samuel Wagan Watson is a Brisbane-based writer of Germanic and Wunjaburra ancestry. In 2018 his body of work was granted the Patrick White Literary Award. More by Samuel Wagan Watson › 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 24 April 2024 · History Anzac Day and the half-remembered history of the Anzacs in Palestine Bill Abrahams and Lucy Honan Schools are deliberate targets for government-funded mystification about Australia’s role in wars. Such instances of official remembrance crowd out the realities of war, and the consequences of Australia’s role in imperialism. As teachers, we should strive to resist this, and we should introduce our students to a fuller understanding of the history of the Anzacs. 22 April 2024 · Gaming Game-death in infinite game-worlds: Darkest Dungeon 2 Josie/Jocelyn Suzanne Death is the ultimate stamp of value. It was invented to sell arcade-like 1 Up repetition to the home market. To read politics in videogames is to learn to read necropolitically, which is why gamers don’t like politics.