Jake Goetz


Bushdoof

below a lighthouse moon
and navigation pole stars
the bush is re-imagined
as a sea of synthesised
lights / sounds –
where in a mad dog
moving algorithm
we shake like cattle
headlight perplexed, floating
to the mercy of the current



Hurstville station

               bops along
                              to Coltrane
and it’s another world

old lady trudges
               short black hair, fat
staring at
                              this notepad

               school girl
to my right
               reads Chinese, guy in front
has spiked hair

               looks like someone
i wouldn’t get along with
                               though maybe
               i could?

smelling the meat
               from Coles
                              and as a vegetarian
               feeling almost offended

as if someone
               nailed a cross
to the door
                              of my mosque

               and i almost feel
like a poem myself
               thinking, writing, staring
listening to Blue Train

               ‘when can i
go into the supermarket
                              and buy what i need
with my good looks?’

words tossing
               across the page
                              like air moves paper
down a street

the couple to my left
               bend-over, pick up
their plastic bags
                              and look relieved

               a girl, guy
another girl walk
               in the spiel
of their Iphones

               as i throw ideas
into this poem
                              like is fear or laziness
our most defining characteristic?

an old man
               with a tennis racket
                              looks strangely out-of-place
has trouble with the gates

no one has the slightest urge
               to help him
not even me
               in this

               ‘another world’
so accepting
               of its position
to act passively

               then a girl, red haired
takes her ticket
                              walks through the gate
‘sorry i’m late’

‘all good’ i say
               the morning
                              not obsessed
with perfection

but living
               creation




Jake Goetz is a writer from Sydney. He currently studies writing at the University of Wollongong.
 
 
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