Published in Overland Issue 224 Spring 2016 Uncategorized Greenslopes in March Liam Ferney for H alternate versions of tom thumb’s blues you’re done up like somebody’s dream and that band next door makes young marble giants of triple m evergreens a weekend blanking the present while the salt water creek breathes under the highway snorkellers fetch oysters and outboard cowboys flirt with the vagaries of the bar the beautiful traces of a lie taking a tennis court oath a third date encounter of the suburban kind the blades topple the addicks en route to wembley a destiny to delight the marketing department it winds the month’s spring the way you unravel a story with more moving parts than the automaton barnuming the gossip shifting all the tickets to the miraculous medicine show i feel like a lucky country like a bloke who’s figured that if you dial up the moon and stare down the barrels any great adventure can be tapped Liam Ferney Liam Ferney’s most recent collection, is Hot Take His previous collection, Content, was shortlisted for the Prime Minister's Literary Award and the Judith Wright Calanthe Award. His other books include Boom (Grande Parade Poets), Career (Vagabond Press) and Popular Mechanics (Interactive Press). He is a media manager, holder of the all-time games record for the New Farm Traktor Collective and convener of the Saturdays readings in Brisbane. More by Liam Ferney 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 27 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) First published in Overland Issue 228 24 January 202325 January 2023 Aotearoa / New Zealand The end of the politics of care Giovanni Tiso The daily spectacle of televised briefings was not unique to New Zealand, and it may simply be the case that Ardern thrived when given the opportunity to speak to the public directly—in other words, that she was better than others at it. Alternatively, we could say that her rhetoric found in the pandemic the ground on which to turn into concrete action. Either way, the benefits we derived in terms of lives saved from the remarkable extension of that social license are literally incalculable.