Zombie Ballroom

Let this be the dance floor for the end of days! Unfurl this glow-in-the dark carpet — fibre optic weft & warp, an infrared brocade — lavish it out across the polished bones of a space station in ruins — shake your feet out, party animals, jiggle your wrists, swivel your hips, crack your fingers (but not too hard!), crack a radioactive glow stick, snort a line of silica, pop a magic mushroom cloud & shelve a dead star — go on, ready your damned selves for one last throw down — palm to palm, strobe lit silhouettes, cheek to cheek, the undead twirl & pirouette, slow motion sweep, controlled riot, counterclockwise sashay through columns of light, clouds of carrion cologne — red - red - blue flash blue — ultralight beams sear through cumulous smoke ultraviolet — ultraviolence distilled in me, your very partial observer, all class, all glass, controlled riot, I watch from above, hang like a man condemned, suspended, no no no, I am zero gravity Mother Mary in my finest robes, dripping green gems, luminous, no emerald no forest green no lime rind or chlorophyll — this is Hulk Green, goblin, Ninja Turtle Green, Slimer from Ghostbusters Green — reflect in each polished facet the decadent mayhem, your million mouths raising voices towards me, as one, singing the final counted with 3D-printed voice boxes. Did you know, the first chandelier maker used candles fashioned from animal fat, wicks of human hair — he set the ceiling on fire & burned down the temple.

Omar Musa is a Bornean-Australian writer and visual artist. His debut novel, Here Come the Dogs (Penguin Books Australia, 2014), was longlisted for the International Dublin Literary Award and Miles Franklin Award; and his one-man play, Since Ali Died, won Best Cabaret Show at the Sydney Theatre Awards in 2018. Musa has also released four poetry books — including Killernova (Penguin Books Australia, 2021), four hip-hop records and had solo exhibitions of his woodcut prints.