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.