Published in Overland Issue 217 Summer 2014 · Uncategorized Skater Tim Thorne A skateboarder hisses down Salisbury Crescent, the sound of a soluble Panadol in the glass. The night is packed full of fog. Only the rolling planet keeps the white air under control, delays the emissions of cinnabar, indigo, umber and jet, madder, vermilion, cerise. So the polity slides; the head-on traffic is to negotiate. What we are wrapped in blurs vision no less. Headlines are in black even on the radio so as to offer their own illumination. We became motorists back when the polls lit up like country pubs. Trucks, motorbikes are louder but I have learned to sleep through everything except what these tiny wheels do to the bones in my ears, knocking my brain out of sleep, loosening the lid of whatever dream was bottled up, bright and persuasive. Fragility is overrated, but it has its uses. Somewhere on a minor island something worthy of literal tragedy plays out. Meanwhile the circus tents are planted firmly, even though the clowns could never be trusted, and we realise they are there ‘for the long haul’ like some earnest NGO but without the moral compass. 3I find it hard to imagine myself into a critical instant, a need to swerve. Yet there is vicarious fear, adrenal, almost fugitive. When I wake up I’ll know that I was hearing him flow down the hill like cascading preferences on a ballot paper. Tim Thorne Tim Thorne’s fourteenth and most recent poetry collection is The Unspeak Poems and other verses (Walleah Press, 2014). In 2012 he was awarded the Christopher Brennan Award for his contribution to Australian poetry. More by Tim Thorne › 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 30 August 2024 · the arts The statements we make Kate Larsen As artists, cultural workers and arts organisations, ours is the business of statement-making. I was reminded of this recently by the work of Portuguese artist Tiago Casanova, whose installation Every wall is a Statement is currently part of the A liberdade e só a Liberdade exhibition (‘Freedom and only freedom’) at The Art and Culture […] 28 August 202428 August 2024 · literary culture What I learnt from reading Chinese youth agony literature Stephanie Qiu Youth agony literature swept across high schools in China from the mid-2000s to early 2010s. While boys played Dota, girls read romance. When my best friend got caught reading a popular book called Devil’s Kiss at recess, the head teacher confiscated it and called her parents in.