Jake Goetz lives in the southern suburbs of Sydney. He has also lived in Munich, Germany (2011) and Graz, Austria (2013) where he studied on exchange. His poetry has appeared in The Sun Herald, Rabbit, Voiceworks, Jaws (Austria), Tide and Otoliths. He completed a Creative Writing Degree at the University of Wollongong, receiving an Asiabound fellowship to Sun Yat-Sen University in China. He is a fiction editor for Mascara.

Rudimentary sketches

… still dreaming
of Russian Pacific seas
sprouting Swedish palms
and a Peruvian woman
with lorikeet eyes
translating nationalism
as breathing – the morning
like a border-less idea
wie in einem großen kreis angeordnet
aber mit anderen namen

*

wind carries the sound
of a train to my door
and i think of waves forming
only to fold like impatient arms
in the local medical centre
and how unnatural it is
to look at the self
in the mirror

*

tree stump sits on brick ledge
wet from rain, dew hangs
from iron fence, could be watery eyes
peering into the late-morning
but it’s mostly dew and a Cockatoo sounds
cigarette burns, feet rest upon pebbles
as shade separates the yard
and a plane moves like a container
of consciousness, banking left
over the Royal to tip out into the city