Jack Underwood Poems

I put an animal on an animal
which I put onto the animal I had already stacked
on top of my first animal and stood back
to appraise my work only
it looked much too short despite the number
of animals I had gathered, and I felt tired and silly
and disappointed, slumping to my knees, rocking
back onto my bum, then lying down to stare
into the hoary sky until my eyeballs softened
and I was forced by the consistent light
to close them and listen to the animals taking
a surprisingly long time to disorganize themselves.
...

I'm gently rowing and the birds look sewn
to the surface of the water as it undulates to the sound
of Sean talking beautifully about something
I don't really understand. But all I'm picturing
are brown paper bags with little grease spots near
the bottom seams that have recorded the way
sausage rolls have touched them, or the thin waists
of dogs as depicted in medieval hunting frescos, or
a cherub's fat little hand gesturing
to a vista where smiling families are meeting
to picnic with the animals that God
has also saved, or I'm thinking about
the mechanics of bagpipes, the legs and arms
and the fat belly and the long neck with its holes.
This has been the best day ever. Sean smiles.
He's wearing shorts, and so am I.
It's sunny! Mine are so short
they may as well be underpants, and I still
don't understand a word that he is saying.
...

I got a letter through the post decreeing my sainthood.
Beatified, I sat down, because this was big news for me.
Bless the television, bless this chair of four wooden legs.
I felt like calling my parents, but thought, in a saintly way,
to do so would be immodest, so instead I opened the curtains.
Rain was washing everything that seemed in need of washing.
A bird landed on a bush and shook water from its wings
and I closed my eyes briefly, acknowledging its small,
hardworking soul, like a microchip destined for heaven.
The cat came in, little devil, and I forgave her, touching
under her chin, sweet child. We watched the news together
and reflected that this was how the world churns
its butter of beginnings and endings in front of the sun.
What good, I wondered laterally, might befall an ancient
tree today? Perhaps merely nothing much. Perhaps a tree
will carry on just as it was. What minerals will develop
unseen in the earth, deep beneath a human tragedy?
Some minerals. Some salty, bright minerals in the dark.
I spent that morning cutting white paper into triangles.
I spent that afternoon staring at my bits, enamored.
I spent that evening clapping loudly in the garden,
and come bedtime I was ready to write my long email
to the President of the United States of America.
...

His blue guitar is lacquered so brightly when he leans
a certain way into his song I can see my head in my hands
reflected. And when he leans back into the emotion
of another chorus his guitar returns to blue: the blue
of unboiled lobsters fading to a general Biro-lid blue
and with a patina of fine tiger stripes the color of sky
midway towards a springtime horizon. I've had a long
time to consider this.

The man with the blue guitar has a little tin for his plectrums,
with a cartoon pelican on its lid, standing on top of the words
"Pelican Throat Lozenges." Between songs he tells me
that he found it in the abandoned house from the song.
Which song? My next song. It's called "The Abandoned House."

The man with the blue guitar reads his lyrics from a special
leather book where he has written all his lyrics.
Sometimes he forgets the words and searches the page
as he plays, his face scrunching as he sings new noises
in their place. I prefer the noises. This song is called
Halloween Moon this song is called Lovesick Bougainvillea
this song is called Bourbon Canal this song is called
St. Michael's Boots My Cousin's Old Coat The Wrestler's
Arm The Old Arm Wrestler Dead Man's Stetson
Panama Morning The Skulls of the Cathedral Lawn
Shadow in the Gully in the Foothills of My Youth
My Heart Is a Love Letter the Folds Are Worn Through.

If I seem too pleased each time he finishes he takes it
as an invitation to play another song. If I do not seem
pleased enough each time he finishes his determination
only reaches further through his face and so he plays
Saratoga Skyline or Sad Preacher's Walk or The Lonely
Way to Gypsy Street or The Story of Your Life or
The Story of the Man with the Blue Guitar
which is the story behind this, my next song.
...

It was winter. The opposite of burning,
which is also burning.
My banner displayed clock parts,
a cup of wine, a worm eating its opposite head.
My motto was Try to Be Responsible,
but every new moon was a sacrificial moon.
Thirteen paving slabs were flipped into the river.

The extra light of spring threw our business
into relief. My banner displayed a sunburst,
a bloodied hand dropping a knife, and
in the other hand an avocado withholding
its stone. War would soon come but not
for us, and this became our motto, Not for Us.
Then a crime in our community led to anger.
Gossip gathered the truth into a ball;
paperwork was spoiled; a man was removed
from the yellow light of the barn.
We heard his sobs coming from the orchard,
and these were a source of comfort.

Summer roused lanterns of dust under doorways,
though a vinegar taste kept the air difficult.
Antifa angels bathed their eyes in milk,
as horses refused riders. The timid among us
signed petitions swearing that when the time came
we would know it by the rocks in our hands.
I made a banner for the protests to come
depicting the planting of milk teeth,
the burning of a noose, a stadium left empty.

Autumn was just my luck. I could not stomach
the broth I boiled, and slept badly.
Arguments I won in my head lost direction
when formed out loud. The riots continued
but quietly now, indoors.
It was a time for manifestos, though the wrongs
were too many for anything less than a lake.
Friends kept the counsel of friends.
In the yellow light of the barn we tried to write
sentences each other would like, or not desire
to alter. Together we designed a quilt depicting
the wolf taking scent, water moving quickly,
the sign of the errant cloud and alphabet,
a baby resisting sleep, a worm eating
its opposite head, only this time surrounded
by snow, which hasn't stopped falling since
Thursday, the name we gave to our child.
...

War the war, the sorry edge
of us, because we stacked nice

clean plates for days, we were
sure things when love broke

across the headland, leaving
conch shells in ditches,

five fish slapping on the steps
of the old town hall, it was winter,

we were bonfires unattended,
our bodies litigating, agreeing

and writing it all down, the law
of legs, the law of how we sleep,

the law of shoulders killing me,
and now we fold clothes without

thinking my clothes your clothes
and war the war o happy war

what love we are so badly bitten
in this long-term necessary chapel

with all attendant relics, citronella
candle, junior hacksaw,

a box of miscellaneous wires,
our headland way-way underwater,

no one else beside us
but ourselves beside ourselves.
...

are talking on the balcony of the student union building. They are in the second year of their respective degrees (Rina, English Literature, Sally, English and American Literature) and their friendship has deepened over the past few months since Michael, Sally's housemate, has been seeing Rina on a more regular basis, and Sally and Rina have found themselves in more regular social contact. They have become close, but this closeness is still fresh with novelty. They are discussing a party that Rina left early with Michael the night before, and although Sally relays her anecdotes well, and selects only notable and entertaining details from the time following Rina's departure (of which there are many, the party being particularly well-attended and growing raucous largely towards the end) Rina cannot help but afford herself a moment of disconnect, or abstraction, in which she almost hears Sally's voice reduce slightly in volume, and in this moment Sally's face presents itself in a new way to Rina - not as her friend's face, but as a system of moving parts. It is at this point Rina feels an impulse drawing forwards in her mind, to punch Sally's face as hard as she can. The impulse hardens and shocks her. She worries that the shock of the thought has registered visibly on her own face, and is relieved to find that Sally, who is still ably telling her anecdote, is oblivious to the violent impulse, already rejected and repressed by her friend. Still, the shock of the impulse has distracted Rina. Why had this thought occurred? Rina clenches her fist a little, as if to regain control of her body, to make sure she can be certain she will not act upon the impulse. She likes Sally, she reassures herself. This is simply an irrational glitch. Rina, feeling reassured, is now ready to fully engage in the anecdote, confident that for the duration of her inward detour she has appeared outwardly engaged and interested. She has said Really? and also furrowed her brow. This frown was initially an outward response to her worrying inner concerns, but Rina, registering some confusion on Sally's face (since that passage of anecdote did not especially warrant a frown), was able to pass it off as an expression of deep concentration, and so loosen her frown into a welcoming smile as if she were satisfied that a certain detail she had been unsure about had found a pleasing resolution. However, as Rina now tries to reengage with a renewed interest in Sally's story, in part motivated by a sense of guilt at her violent thought and subsequent betrayal of her friend in feigning interest, she finds she has lost track of the anecdote, or has at least missed a crucial part of its structure or rhetorical arc - the crux, she fears, on which the meaning of the story depends. As Sally increases her enthusiasm at what must surely be the denouement, Rina feels a sense of panic draw forwards in her, sensing that despite her best efforts to feign both surprise and comprehension she will betray the fact that she has not been listening, and Sally will realise her efforts have been expended without hope of reward, and will probably doubt herself, and her ability to tell an amusing anecdote, or worse, her friendship with Rina, who is only being further distracted by this sense of panic: that she will hurt her friend, that she will be thought of as disingenuous, that she is, indeed, relatively disingenuous compared to her friend, who in a matter of seconds will have good grounds on which to base that poor opinion of her. And this panic, Rina feels, is now registering outwardly on her face, and though it is possible Sally will read this as anticipation, Rina doubts she will do so for very long, as Sally's voice now seems entirely abstracted to Rina; only her bright expectant eyes are speaking and when they stop speaking what will Rina say? What can she possibly say?
...

huge, white and expensive, like an anvil
dropped from heaven: how will we get onboard,
up there, when it hurts our necks to look?

Other times it is a rock on the lawn, and matter
can never be destroyed. But today we hold it
to the edge of our bed, shutting our eyes

on another opened hour and listening
to our neighbours' voices having the voices
of their friends around for lunch.
...

after Akhmatova
Life is a frozen lamb: I'm waiting.
I have turned off the lights and been dramatic, opening doors.
Take any form you like.
Why not come thumping great chunks off us,
or cut our necks like bike locks,
or creep into our bodies like a smell in the fridge
or surprise our throats like a tune from the morning radio
that we'll notice we're singing the way you notice
a police car pulling up the drive?
I don't care how. The drains are gurgling,
the sky is a reservoir of wrong-headed questions. And eyes
that I love are losing their tournament
...