Published in Overland Issue 244 Spring 2021 · Poetry In the only flats in a posh suburb Belinda Rule Wake to the back neighbour’s pool pump, cloud of young mosquitoes in the stairwell, little girls screaming in the pool — the rich man’s voice pulls the cord on a two-stroke tuned soprano. The other rich man, over the side fence, has a woodchipper. Granted there’s no point having a woodchipper if you don’t use it to chip a motherfucking fuck-ton of wood. The rich people two doors down had renovations a year and half, all day bang bang BANG BANG, then the man with the woodchipper, who also has a double block, three cars, a ride-on mower, a trampoline, and an actual working dovecote, put a second floor on and blocked my view of distant trees. I don’t mind the dovecote, pigeons circling like fireworks, near the whole height of the sky, a thousand hands flipping dictionaries, whoo, whoo. Only when they go to bed do the crows start: faaarck. I told my dad about the woodchipper, as I drank his wine on his quarter-acre block and two sheds, architect’s plans on the glossy table. He lit up, said, I’ve been meaning to get a woodchipper. Read the rest of Overland 244 If you enjoyed this piece, buy the issue Or subscribe and receive four brilliant issues for a year Belinda Rule Belinda Rule is Melbourne writer of poetry and fiction. Her poetry chapbook, The Things the Mind Sees Happen, Puncher & Wattmann/Slow Loris, was commended in the Anne Elder Award 2019. Her first full-length poetry collection, Hyperbole, is forthcoming with Recent Works Press in 2021. More by Belinda Rule › 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 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 First published in Overland Issue 228 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 ...