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From: Vol.04 N.01 – Where to feel now

Sutherland station (notes for poems)

by Jake Goetz

Every machine will gradually take on this patina and lose its identity in its function.

– Wind, Sand and Stars, Antoine de Saint-Exupery

 

1

 

a comparison

 

the government’s stance

on asylum seekers

could be best explained

in the way roll-your-own smokers

are smarter than tailored

purely because of the Aussie facts

on Tally-Ho packs, e.g.

 

The hottest Australian day in

history was in Oodnadatta,

South Australia. On the 2nd of

January 1960. It was 50.7C.

 

2
with anti-natural                                    Enhance your                                                 you

beauty injections            OR                  natural beauty             OR          beauty (!) inject

Enhance                                                    with anti-wrinkle                        with ant       ink

your wrinkle.                                            injections.                                       o (!) (w ink) .

 

3

 

‘how to get lost in                   ’

 

go to                 ’s

central station

and turn left then right

then left usw.

detail the walk

 

4

 

8202     Fury     Fury     SHORTY     RIGS     Ryos     Pacific National …

54 carriages of coal

something about

‘a run-away economy’

 

5

 

I forgot about it from time to time; only when

my teacher came into the classroom and put

the composition books down on the desk without

a word, I was afraid he had found out about it,

and the whole world would find out about it.

As a rule, I was the first he called up when the

composition books were distributed, and I had

to go out in front of the class …

 

6

 

how poetry passes the time –

a Dionysian app – the aim?

one must be absolutely modern

in an ad for tic-tacs:

Do you chew?

 

7

 

move to Spain

get a job and enjoy

tapas y cerveza   after this

lose one’s self to travel

head to Tarifa   look over

the Mediterranean

at the mountains of Morocco

sitting in a summer mist

 

8

 

write something short

and meditative about

the winter morning

i smoked a Marlboro gold in Incheon

staring at the clean

empty streets

 

9

 

… the only one who had made no mistakes.

1 worker hammers, 4 workers watch

( ‘… Coniston, Dapto, Unanderra …’ )

She died the same summer and …

a baby cries, conductor whistles

… I forgot about it, as you forget water

you drank somewhere when you were thirsty.

Published: January 2017
Jake Goetz

is a writer from Sydney. His poetry has most recently appeared in Cordite, Rabbit, Otoliths and is forthcoming in Southerly. In 2016 he completed a manuscript of poems through the ASA’s Emerging Writers mentorship program.

An Australian and international
journal of ecopoetry and ecopoetics.

Plumwood Mountain Journal is created on the unceded lands of the Gadigal and Wangal people of the Eora Nation. We pay our respects to all Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people, and to elders past, present and future. We also acknowledge all traditional custodians of the lands this journal reaches.

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