Published in Overland Issue 241 Summer 2020 Poetry River: contra/indications Jill Jones Even if I see and don’t see the river’s writhing the fish daphnia algae the water the water the swelling of ritalin warfarin methotrexate Even if I bend or don’t bend to the flow ingest bitter tasting wonders as do aquatic insects riparian spiders soaked in memantine codeine fluconazole mianserin Even if the nerve system of antidotes flushes me with tics ‘Platypuses feed on the insect larvae that live on the creek bed’ aggression numbness memory loss unwanted rules of the algorithm Past the old flux of apoplexy breakbone dropsy grief grippe horrors jaw-faln lethargy lockjaw nostalgia palsy quinsy rickets scurvy spleen Even if I know it’s too much and not enough ‘with ageing infrastructure there’s some leakage’ with my own sweet body is all I offer baptismal slough of perfume cologne skin lotion sunscreen Even if the nerve system of doses will cure my blurred vision steroids move from cows to waterways through banks and sediments tiredness aches anaemia unusual bruising Even if my nerve system splits from its diminishing returns Silent and hardened destroyed duplicitous and dumb I’m not quite lost though I may not speak up In that plagued flux dying still navigates living welcome stone-fly larvae leafy twig-rush all you tiddlers everything as part of things nothing to rule earth but little ones Note: Quotes from ‘Drugs in Our Waterways, the Bugs and Beyond’ by Bob Wong and Erinn Richmond. https://lens.monash.edu/2018/11/06/1364035/pharmaceuticals-in-our-waterways Read the rest of Overland 241 If you enjoyed this piece, buy the issue Or subscribe and receive four brilliant issues for a year Jill Jones Jill Jones was born in Sydney and has lived in Adelaide since 2008. Recent books include Wild Curious Air, A History Of What I’ll Become, Viva the Real, which was shortlisted for the 2019 Prime Minister’s Literary Awards for Poetry and the 2020 John Bray Award, and Brink. In 2015 she won the Victorian Premier’s Prize for Poetry for The Beautiful Anxiety. Her work has been translated into Chinese, French, Italian, Czech, Macedonian and Spanish. More by Jill Jones 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 4 First published in Overland Issue 228 1 February 20233 February 2023 Reviews This is where the rat bastard poem comes in Dan Hogan Rats will be found wherever nonsense presented as sense becomes the authority. Such is the cornerstone of anything organised along lines of capital: bureaucracies, workplace hierarchies, real estate, aspiration culture, institutions, ruling class artifice, governments, etcetera. Wherever there is capital there are rats—hoarding creatures, capital’s henchmen. First published in Overland Issue 228 16 December 202225 January 2023 Poetry Poetry | Wombats shit candy Michael Farrell To avoid treading on a snake, I stepped on a land mine. Did this really happen, in my dream? No. Is it a fiction, then? Yes and no. The time I spend looking for socks is insignificant: lie, irony, or philosophy? Wombats shit candy. Joke – hallucination? This is in fact a truth claim. My poems: litanies of truth claims.
