Tuesday 22 January 2013

'Spooks' by Jack Underwood

A poem in this week's New Statesman has entertained me for longer than they normally do.  It's 'Spooks' by a young English poet called Jack Underwood.  The theme is very black and I'm still trying to understand what it is about it that I like.  Perhaps I should e-mail Mr Underwood?  In fact, I will e-mail him and see what he says.

I want to inject blood into the banana
then put it smartly in a bowl I want
someone to idly choose it peel it then taste
the strange rust a quarter way down

and spit it out see blood in the lemony mulch
(a sort of red spit with the tiny black seeds)

I want them to check their mouth for a source a cut
and by now the person they are with will be confused
(blood on the lip in the footwell

at the gum-edges) and say are you ok?
I want them to reply there's blood then without
even meaning to without a logical tracing

of thought look back to the banana and see
blood in the banana, feel the raw shock

of something possibly unthought of
I want them to get to the idea that
someone put the blood in the banana
an idea drinking heat from the skin but held
unable to understand to fit the reasons

I want this to happen.

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