Published in Overland Issue 244 Spring 2021 · Poetry A tale of two crowds Joel Ephraims 1. A group of bronze teens are partying under an unclouded day moon facing off a clouded sun in the corona pandemic. Making complicit an eroding sea cliff whose cliff strengthening is paused with witches hats. Their boom box almost whispering. They look huddled, wavering in the unspoken uncertainty that they are potentially doing something catastrophically wrong. 2. Further down the stretch of beach, water closed because of four metre great whites attracted by a rotten whale quartered into a truck only a day ago, a white family of three stand vigil. Dressed in their best scarves with chests proudly puffed. Their best Lowes coats. Even having broken feud with the unpaid hound race debts of the bristled uncle. A scrap of the carcass that made the panel on The Project or just a fin of one of the great whites that dwarf speed boats. As though the sole guests of a jubilant wake or the only three secretly ushered to attend a hidden NRL grand final with scalped tickets. Read the rest of Overland 244 If you enjoyed this piece, buy the issue Or subscribe and receive four brilliant issues for a year Joel Ephraims Joel Ephraims lives on the south-east coast of NSW. He recently had a suite of poems published in The Red Room Company’s The Disappearing. More by Joel Ephraims › 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 5 November 2025 · Poetry Force posture agreement Miroslav Sandev The men of Darwin have all taken their rottweilers / out for a walk at the same time. / For our protection. Like Pine Gap: / all those big white eyes that scan / the darkening horizon. / The eyes stay woke, so that we may sleep. / Or so they say. 1 22 August 202522 August 2025 · Poetry starmight K.A Ren Wyld Ending genocide and apartheid is the story. Palestinian liberation is the story. / Aboriginal rights is the story. Truth, justice, treaties and land back is the story. / Global Indigenous peoples’ solidarity and joy is the story. Kinship is the story.
