Prithvi Varatharajan is a PhD candidate at the University of Queensland, and a freelance producer of literature and arts programs for ABC Radio National. He is writing his PhD thesis on the radio program Poetica, which aired on ABC RN from 1997 to 2014. He has published scholarly, critical and creative writing in various Australian and overseas journals and books. His article on a Poetica adaptation of John Forbes’ poetry is forthcoming in a special issue of Adaptation titled ‘Adapting Australia
Ecstasy
the streets are wide open
leading you through a bleak
and beautiful future
rain slakes down,
slashing at the jacket
you hold dearly
by its sleeve, your chin
tucked in
we leg it over the bridge
to a dimly imagined
destination
lights of the park,
brilliant in their unreality
glisten as we pass
their globes hold pure warmth
that ebbs into the night
like a promise of happiness
Country. Car Window.
late afternoon’s
division of road,
its sleek black skin
pared open
by white
the white, a crumb-trail
to a near horizon
the white, the pulse
of something
nearly forgotten
above the road
a kookaburra
shabby in a tree
laughs deliriously
rogue hay bales
roll motionless
on a field
so vast the eye
blurs at its edges
and a fence of slouching steel
lengthens to a darkening
distance, linking
infinite horizons
with apparent ease.