Friday 31 October 2014

New poem: Museum



We were on holiday in the country and just

outside a village we were going through we

saw a sign that said, ‘The World’s Best

Museum’. I said that I thought it strange that

if it was the ‘world’s best museum’ we hadn’t

heard of it. And anyway, why would it be

here? That made everyone angry, and they

said that there must be something wrong with

me to be put such a downer on everything.

So I said, fair enough, let’s go. We went down

several country lanes and over one of those

level crossings that everyone worries about

and got to a house that stood on its own

next to some woods. The sign outside just

said, ‘Museum’. It didn’t say what it was a

museum of. There were no lights on and it

was just beginning to get dark, so I said that

I didn’t think anyone was in but the others

said there may be and that was me putting

a downer on things again. So we knocked on

the door and quite quickly a woman came out

and asked us if we had come for the wood. We

said that we hadn’t. We had come for the

museum. She looked a bit puzzled for a moment

so I said,‘The sign. The Museum.’

‘Ah yes, the Museum,’ she said, ‘the Museum.’

She said to follow her through the house and

out the back. In the garden there were some

sheds and she said, ‘There you go.’

We moved forward, a bit hesitantly, and went

up to the first shed. I pulled at the door and it

came open after a strong tug. Inside it was

dark, so we gathered around the doorway and

looked in. I could make out a sign on a shelf at

the back of the hut. It said, ‘What do you reckon?’

The little one said, ‘What does it say?’

I said, ‘“What do you reckon?”’

She said, ‘I don’t know.”

I said, ‘I don’t know either.’

Then the woman from the Museum said,

‘What do you reckon?’

And I said, ‘Do you mean, what do I reckon

with “What do you reckon?” or do you

just mean, “What do you reckon?’

She looked at me and said, ‘What do

you reckon?’

The little one said that she didn’t like

it. I said that it looked like there were

more sheds we could go in but the others

said that there wasn’t much point.

I said that this time it wasn’t me putting

a downer on things.

They said, ‘Never mind that.’

The little one said, ‘We don’t have to

go through the level crossing on the way

back, do we?’