Published in Overland Issue 232 Spring 2018 · Uncategorized Ghosts Kate Middleton Oh / can’t you handle / a ghost? – Alice Notley I can’t think of a time she uses it. The word. Ghost. My difficulty. Believing this. There are ghosts everywhere in her words. She just uses other. Words. Toxins. Hormones. So we talk about the words she does use. About the way they sit within the body. And we talk about present. Talk time. Talk quantum something. Oh. I say. We should talk about the other meaning. You know. Gift. No-one thinks she meant that. Even me. Until I do. This meaning a shadow. As if a momentary feeling of wholeness weren’t constant. Ly shattered. I could offer a reading. Of the poem. Of the bone flute. Drawn from the body. But. But this is not. Possible. Instead. I unwrap the word. Present. Remind me. I say. Remind me what St Augustine said. Time as a hormone. Time as a toxin. Time infects. The body. Time turns the bone to flute. Gifts its hollowed body music. Marrowless. Shaded. for Emily Stewart Image: Mark Nye / flickr Read the rest of Overland 232 If you enjoyed this poem, buy the issue Or subscribe and receive four outstanding issues for a year Kate Middleton Kate Middleton is an Australian writer. She is the author of the collections Fire Season (Giramondo), awarded the Western Australian Premier’s Award for Poetry in 2009, Ephemeral Waters (Giramondo), shortlisted for the NSW Premier’s award in 2014, and Passage (Giramondo, 2017). From 2011–2012, she was the inaugural Sydney City Poet. More by Kate Middleton › 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 15 September 2023 · Friday Features Activating the poetic spirit as friendship John Kinsella I’ve always had the aching feeling that—as a text to be shared among friends and maybe eventually ‘enemies’—the soul-body dialogue poem is a way of arguing towards spiritual certainty in the face of earthly corruption and doubt. First published in Overland Issue 228 14 September 202314 September 2023 · Indigenous rights The ballot box does not translate ideology Jeanine Leane The Voice referendum is a once-in-a-generation opportunity for the younger demographic to shape the future of the nation. Future generations of younger Australians will have to live with the outcome of October 14 for quite some time. If the referendum is defeated, it mean a nation was given the opportunity to recognise its First People and refused it.
