Published in Overland Issue 243 Winter 2021 · Poetry Abattoir song Sam Morley the shuffle hooves click head-to-hide cattle the press of mud shit billiard eyes shunt grunting low beams of steaming semis under mire ratchet of gurking yards herd of udders hassled down iron chutes by breathless kelpies not needing to bark as a child I hear all this a dream track to sleep across damp paddocks slaughter lights and cleavers the sluice of fi lling throats and death sheds wintering Read the rest of Overland 243 If you enjoyed this piece, buy the issue Or subscribe and receive four brilliant issues for a year Sam Morley Sam Morley is an emerging poet living in Melbourne. His work has been published by Cordite Poetry Review, Red Room Poetry, Hunter Writer’s Centre and shortlisted in the ACU Poetry Prize 2020. More by Sam Morley › 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 8 March 20248 March 2024 · Poetry POETRY Gareth Morgan as if a poem were a person, me, i get up in the morning / i buy coffee in a can, and wait / you have to keep calm, “don't get upset” / or it fucks everything up. the bosses who tell me this / are wise but stupid troopers. this is a political poem 16 February 202419 February 2024 · Poetry Two poems from 36 Ways of Writing a Vietnamese Poem Nam Le But think about the children, super cute children, mute children, with uncommonly big eyes, children with hard eyes, eyes that have seen what no child’s eyes should see, children naked as the day wearing big smiles and no smiles, preternaturally wise, with mooned-out tummies and cleft palates and cataracts, deformities and birth defects ...
