Jake Goetz
Time / place / process
light perceives the glass
as a man a mirror
as a silhouette of gums
are sun-drawn by rotations
and if a clearer more
silent breathe were had
you wouldn’t believe breathing
could be this easy this hard
this boring this riveting
is this what the suburbs have taught me?
to subjectify my surroundings
in a maelstrom of spontaneity
like a vending machine
dispensing reality in a pack of Smiths
or walking home from the station
past weatherboard houses
crunching leaves, kicking twigs
caught in the cycling current
of the everyday: a fruit bat hung
and fried on electric wires
is it to know some days
there are questions and that other days
are questions in themselves
whole universes constructed into 24 hours
expanded into weeks months and years
at times so absurd to be held
by this or that here
this now
And again …
               for Nichola
                              is this the personality of love?
what else to do but google love
                              1. ‘a strong feeling of affection’
                              2. ‘a great interest and pleasure in something’
                              3. ‘feel deep affection or sexual love for (someone)’
               we walk thru Glebe and Victorian patterns meet
the sun-beat on green leaves    below a wide roof of summer blue
               the rise (and decline?) of China on our tongues
what of Australia?               our old loves?               (feeling liberated!)
               then lying beneath a Moreton Bay fig amongst
the complexity               absurdity               of human relations
                                                                          and                                             (your comfort beside me)
               social anxieties:
i see you, your hand, hovering over
the ringing phone, thinking, 15yrs old in Sawtell
*
could it really be that bad? to do it ‘And again …’ ?
                                             and if it were
                                                                                                         or am i suggesting something
               which hasn’t entered your mind at all?
that something which repeats itself and i don’t even have to
try repeat it myself at all
               ‘each letter has a colour’, you once said
as we caught the ferry from Cronulla to Bundeena
                                             ‘you’ve a very colourful name’
… later by the Pacific a small wave came in
and i picked up your bag as your boots got wet
                                             and we laughed
this was the first time i knew
                              thought i knew
               a new possibility to know the personality of love
and thru those Facebook messages:
‘the experienced world
hasn’t been
the world itself
for a long time now’
                                             and if that be ‘is it through deconstructing form and stripping it of its appointed meaning that we break down the viewer's habitual patterns of perception and encourage them to perceive form devoid of the meaning we impose upon it’?
               is this too much?               no doubt it may surprise you a little
                                                                           (not enough?)
the personality of love?
*
today you are a journey, a movement, a plane, ship or train, the midwife of thought: where ‘few places are more conducive to internal conversations’
you are constructed from words letters shapes lines bent curved and straightened
                                                            so is this it?
could it be?                         and if it actually were
                              would it be?
                                                                                          and how am i to know?
*
beetroot hummus                          homemade wholemeal loaf
               ‘the slow movement’
                                                            of my pen
                              in a red Chinese notebook                         (an omen!)
               sitting in an Ashfield afternoon                              (a wonderful omen!)
‘ey bud, train termnates ere’
‘aw shit’
(look around, carriage empty)
‘where ya goin’
‘Gymea’
‘better get goin then’
‘yeah yeah cheers’
*
ah, this is, is this a strong feeling of affection?
                              to take a great interest and pleasure in something?
to feel a deep affection or sexual desire for (someone), love, the idea of love, and if i am in love, inside the idea whilst thinking of you, does that mean we are both theoretically in love? or are you the love in itself, dressed in it, wearing it like body paint, have i pinned it to you?
                                             the personality of love?
                                                                                                         a soft bewilderment?
               at Hurstville station a man hangs up his phone, curses a woman
then drops his leather laptop bag on the ground
                                             yet
                                                            how the train moves the air, the page, the mind
the you, the me and on the way home two lorikeets interweave
               out the front of Coles:
                                             a firework show amidst the flurry of cars, an orange
purple sunset
                                                            the coming of dark
Jake Goetz is a writer from Sydney. He recently completed a Bachelor of Creative Writing at the University of Wollongong.
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Time / place / process
light perceives the glass
as a man a mirror
as a silhouette of gums
are sun-drawn by rotations
and if a clearer more
silent breathe were had
you wouldn’t believe breathing
could be this easy this hard
this boring this riveting
is this what the suburbs have taught me?
to subjectify my surroundings
in a maelstrom of spontaneity
like a vending machine
dispensing reality in a pack of Smiths
or walking home from the station
past weatherboard houses
crunching leaves, kicking twigs
caught in the cycling current
of the everyday: a fruit bat hung
and fried on electric wires
is it to know some days
there are questions and that other days
are questions in themselves
whole universes constructed into 24 hours
expanded into weeks months and years
at times so absurd to be held
by this or that here
this now
And again …
               for Nichola
                              is this the personality of love?
what else to do but google love
                              1. ‘a strong feeling of affection’
                              2. ‘a great interest and pleasure in something’
                              3. ‘feel deep affection or sexual love for (someone)’
               we walk thru Glebe and Victorian patterns meet
the sun-beat on green leaves    below a wide roof of summer blue
               the rise (and decline?) of China on our tongues
what of Australia?               our old loves?               (feeling liberated!)
               then lying beneath a Moreton Bay fig amongst
the complexity               absurdity               of human relations
                                                                          and                                             (your comfort beside me)
               social anxieties:
i see you, your hand, hovering over
the ringing phone, thinking, 15yrs old in Sawtell
*
could it really be that bad? to do it ‘And again …’ ?
                                             and if it were
                                                                                                         or am i suggesting something
               which hasn’t entered your mind at all?
that something which repeats itself and i don’t even have to
try repeat it myself at all
               ‘each letter has a colour’, you once said
as we caught the ferry from Cronulla to Bundeena
                                             ‘you’ve a very colourful name’
… later by the Pacific a small wave came in
and i picked up your bag as your boots got wet
                                             and we laughed
this was the first time i knew
                              thought i knew
               a new possibility to know the personality of love
and thru those Facebook messages:
‘the experienced world
hasn’t been
the world itself
for a long time now’
                                             and if that be ‘is it through deconstructing form and stripping it of its appointed meaning that we break down the viewer's habitual patterns of perception and encourage them to perceive form devoid of the meaning we impose upon it’?
               is this too much?               no doubt it may surprise you a little
                                                                           (not enough?)
the personality of love?
today you are a journey, a movement, a plane, ship or train, the midwife of thought: where ‘few places are more conducive to internal conversations’
you are constructed from words letters shapes lines bent curved and straightened
                                                            so is this it?
could it be?                         and if it actually were
                              would it be?
                                                                                          and how am i to know?
beetroot hummus                          homemade wholemeal loaf
               ‘the slow movement’
                                                            of my pen
                              in a red Chinese notebook                         (an omen!)
               sitting in an Ashfield afternoon                              (a wonderful omen!)
‘ey bud, train termnates ere’
‘aw shit’
(look around, carriage empty)
‘where ya goin’
‘Gymea’
‘better get goin then’
‘yeah yeah cheers’
ah, this is, is this a strong feeling of affection?
                              to take a great interest and pleasure in something?
to feel a deep affection or sexual desire for (someone), love, the idea of love, and if i am in love, inside the idea whilst thinking of you, does that mean we are both theoretically in love? or are you the love in itself, dressed in it, wearing it like body paint, have i pinned it to you?
                                             the personality of love?
                                                                                                         a soft bewilderment?
               at Hurstville station a man hangs up his phone, curses a woman
then drops his leather laptop bag on the ground
                                             yet
                                                            how the train moves the air, the page, the mind
the you, the me and on the way home two lorikeets interweave
               out the front of Coles:
                                             a firework show amidst the flurry of cars, an orange
purple sunset
                                                            the coming of dark
Author's Note: "‘And again …’ uses lines from Pam Brown’s More than a feuilleton and Alan De Botton’s The Art of Travel.
Jake Goetz is a writer from Sydney. He recently completed a Bachelor of Creative Writing at the University of Wollongong.
