Poetry Magazines - The best collection of poetry magazines online - Simon Armitage

     Is that a sealion in your pocket, or are you pleased to see me? Harharhar. Sorry: that's just the way I talk. You'll have to excuse my, er, sprays of roses. If you get my drift. John Wood, Surrealist Detective, at your service station. Here's my card: it's blank. Business is bad. Here's my card: it's a fish. Business is SO surreal.

    I was in my office, feet up on the desk, odd shoes of course, somewhere in the Badlands between Wakefield and Barnsley, an office in a purple caravan in a lay-by the Wakefield side of NewMillerdam. You can't miss the caravan when you're going by. Purple. Big white letters: JOHN WOOD, SURREALIST DETECTI. Not enough room you see. Small caravan. Harharhar.

     She came in without knocking. I said ‘Go back and knock’. She didn't. She was tall and blonde. Her lip had a ring in it the size of tractor tyre. Who's the surrealist here? I thought. I said it again: ‘Go back and knock.’ She didn't. I like strong women. I said, ‘What can I, in the surrealist detecting sense of the word, do for you today MaNewMillerDam?’ She fixed me with a gaze that could have melted euphoniums.

     ‘I've tried every other detective in West and South Yorkshire,’ she said.

     ‘Oh really?’ I said.

     ‘Yeah, really.’

     ‘No, I meant O'Really, the Sleuth from Heath. Harharhar.’

     ‘Tried him. Nobody wants to take on my case.’

     ‘You've come to the right man TT races,’ I said.

     She ignored my gags and handed me a photograph. It was a photograph of an apple. Russet, I guessed. Greenish worldweary skin like a bus driver on the late shift to Wombwell on a steaming Friday night in July. It didn't have a sticker on like you often get with apples these days. That would make it harder to identify.

     ‘I want you to find him’, she said. The lipring made her voice somehow musical.

     ‘Is this all there is to go on?’ I asked. I was thinking: I know I'm The Surrealist Detective but really I'm just a fat guy in an Orange Suit. What it says on the caravan ain't necessarily life, as they say. Sure, I've solved umpteen cases since I left the glassworks (and that was one long day of bright sparkling sound art) but you scratch the surface tension of a lot of these so-called surrealist cases and, well, they're just cases. The Great Owl Disappearance was just that: stuffed owls nicked by a kid from Cas. The Melting Watches of Time was a pickpocket who tried to (oh, it's so obvious I don't really need to William Tell you, do I ?) melt down the stolen watches. But this was different. A russet apple. Missing. A true surrealist crime.

     ‘It's my husband,’ she said.

     ‘What is?’

     ‘That is’, she said, pointing to the photo. My heart leaped. True surrealism in a purple caravan! I felt nervously nervy-ous.

     ‘Any clues?’ I asked, trying to sound casual. Maybe my megaphone was too loud. I didn't sound that casual.

     ‘He's a Trinity fan, or the Wildcats as they call them these days,’ she said. And she turned and went.

     And that was it. Picture of an apple. An apple that liked Rugby League. She came back in.

     ‘Find him’, she said, ‘I love him very much indeed.’

     The precision of her language almost made me cry cucumber tears.

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

     Trinity were playing Leeds Rhinos. A giant rhino and huge wildcat capered about. Surrealism. I felt at home. People thought I was selling something in my orange suit. I had a fake axe through my head and I was carrying a small stepladder made of dough. They almost didn't let me in with the doughladder.

     ‘You can't bring a ladder in’, said the blokey at the gate.

     ‘I'm John Wood, Surrealist Detective and I can do what I like, pal,’ I said.

     ‘You can't bring a ladder in’, he said.

     I took a bite to show him it was made of dough. Harharhar.

     ‘You should have said it was a sandwich’, he said, and I was in.

     The rest should have been easy. Look for an apple. Maybe an apple in a Trinity scarf. I studied the picture. Obviously it wasn't a real apple but a husband dressed as an apple. Was that the only picture she had? The game started. The Rhinos were all over Trinity. I wished I was back at the glassworks. I couldn't see anybody dressed as an apple. Suddenly she was beside me, lipring glowing in the floodlights.

     ‘I'm looking, I'm looking’, I said. I would have climbed the ladder of dough but it was beginning to crumble. Even a surrealist can't climb dust.

     ‘I gave you the wrong picture, she said. I gave you a picture of an apple, not my husband.’

     ‘I knew that,’ I said, ‘but I didn't let on because I'm a surrealist.’

     ‘You didn't let on because you're a fart’, she said.

     ‘Shame’, I said, ‘because I've just seen two blokes who look like apples.’

     ‘Liar’, she said. She reached into her pocket and gave me a photo.

     Trinity scored. I glanced at it. A joke. Harhardyhar. An orange. They converted it.

     ‘Are you trying to wind me up with fruit’, I said, realising that I was probably the only person in the Wakefield area to ever say those words ever.

     ‘That's all I've got’, she said, tears shining in her eyes like last day in the glass factory ‘That's him,’ she said, ‘at a fancy dress party last year.’

     I looked more closely. It was a man dressed as an orange. You could just about make that out. But it was a bloody good costume. Looked like an orange to me.

     ‘He might not be wearing that costume now’, she said.

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

     What it says on the caravan ain't necessarily life. JOHN WOOD, SURREALIST DETECTI, but not today. Not detecting nothing today, just sitting like a Rubens nude on the tiny caravan settee. A Rubens nude with clothes on. A bloke clothed Rubens nude with a big yellow hat. Looking at a photo of an orange. Some chuffin detective. Where would a bloke who liked to dress as fruit go ? Ackworth? Doncaster? Further afield, maybe. Snaith. Big orange in the middle of Snaith. Maybe. I was talking to myself, like I do, like all surrealists do. Come on John, get out and find that blokey. Get out and find that fruit. I started to say the word fruit over and over again till it sounded like a surrealist poem, one of Apollinaire's, maybe. Fruit fruit fruit fruit fruit fruit fruit fruit. Second verse: fruit fruit fruit fruit fruit fruit fruit fruit. Then it struck me: fruitmarket at Barnsley! That's where he'd be he he!

     I wandered round the fruit market dressed as a banana. If you're looking for fruit, dress as a fruit, I figured. It made sense until I actually started walking round the market, when I realised I wasn't the only one.

     There were apples, plums, couple of other bananas like myself. There was a big fat bloke who I thought was meant to be a melon but he was only a big fat bloke. One of the other bananas said to me, At least we're on the minimum wage. I smiled. A grape thrust a pile of handouts into my hand. Handouts in hand I wandered.

     PEOPLE OF BARNSLEY the handouts said GIVE UP YOUR UNHEALTHY DIETS AND EAT FRUIT!

     It was a council fruit eating campaign to save the slobs from slow lingering and all too non-surreal death. I sat in the cafe eating a bacon sarnie. In surrealist fashion I was wrapping each bit in Christmas wrapping paper before I ate it. An orange sat next to me. It was him. The missing.

     ‘I know you're looking for me’, he said, his voice muffled by the skin.

     ‘She loves you very much’, I said, my voice muffled by bacon, bread, and Christmas wrapping paper.

     A lime sitting near us would have heard the orange say Hmf Har Hm FF, and would have heard the banana say Hfm mfm f mf mf.

     ‘I don't want to go home’, he said. I should have asked why. I'm a detective after all, but instead I asked him surrealist questions.

     ‘Can you name me four months that haven't been named yet?’ I said.

     ‘Can, Throat, Juicyness, March,’ he said.

     ‘Wrong’, I said.

     ‘You won't tell her you've seen me, will you?’ I've started a new life in a pied-a-terre in Rotherham with a wild potter’, he said.

     Am I a detective, or am I surrealist, I thought. Am I more a detective or more a surrealist, I thought. A detective would tell the wife. A surrealist would make an octopus from the bits of fluff in his pocket. But what does a Surrealist Detective do? It says on the caravan I'm a surrealist detective, but what shall I do? You read detective novels where the detectives have dilemmas but their dilemmas are games compared to my dilemma. It's the most interesting dilemma a fictional detective has ever faced, I think you'll agree. If this was a film, some music would start now.