{"id":424,"date":"2011-10-28T11:00:00","date_gmt":"2011-10-28T11:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/ink.verticalplus.co.uk\/archive\/?p=424"},"modified":"2011-10-28T11:00:00","modified_gmt":"2011-10-28T11:00:00","slug":"peter-daniels-natural-history-museum","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/peter-daniels-natural-history-museum\/","title":{"rendered":"Peter Daniels' 'Natural History Museum'"},"content":{"rendered":"

Natural History Museum <\/span>

I wish Lord let me be nervous again, as confidence makes them wary,<\/span>
and please make me meek \u2014 as if it could make them love me \u2014<\/span>
but for now I want to shout Fuck<\/span> and my tone may be unsympathetic, <\/span>
though I don\u2019t have the accent for street ranting.<\/span>

I don\u2019t live like that either, I do enjoy a steady job and comforts.<\/span>

I wish to propitiate the Ilford Mammoth.<\/span>
I\u2019d pray to refashion the instruments of peace,<\/span>
be famous for it: I\u2019ll be dead soon enough  <\/span>
and they say you can\u2019t take it with you. <\/span>
You\u2019ll be dead, too, and then you\u2019ll be sorry:<\/span>
we shouldn\u2019t throw away our advantages. <\/span>

Today, I wish to be as unknown as yesterday, <\/span>
yet never unhappy with my broken trumpet, <\/span>
even now I know that it\u2019s mine:<\/span>
I grew up thinking it\u2019s others that are chosen, <\/span>
I\u2019m not the one that must break the instrument, then <\/span>
twist it back into tone.<\/span>

I wish to kneel at the rail of the exhibit.<\/span>

The Mammoth is depicted walking up the High Road<\/span>
in front of a double decker bus its own size. I ask<\/span>
do they do this as a postcard, they suggest I suggest it.<\/span>

They do a postcard of fleas in Mexican costume.<\/span>

I am moved to set out East, to undertake the sacred journey.<\/span>
At Seven Sisters I\u2019ll buy a ticket for Seven Kings,<\/span>
to visit the spot where it fell, twisting and trumpeting. <\/span>
The Borough will have a file on it, there may be a plaque.<\/span>

I shall keep my feet off the seats, and leave no belongings on the train.<\/span>

I wish to make the fulfilled pilgrim\u2019s return, purged and serene.<\/span>





*Peter Daniels<\/span> publications: pamphlet <\/span>Mr Luczinski Makes a Move <\/span>(HappenStance, 2011); first full collection <\/span>Counting Eggs<\/span> (Mulfran) and translations of Vladislav Khodasevich (Angel Books) both due in 2012. Website: www.peterdaniels.org.uk<\/a><\/span>

'Natural History Museum' was runner-up in <\/span>Tabla<\/span> competition and first appeared in the magazine of the same name.  It will be published in <\/span>Counting Eggs<\/span> (2012)<\/span>
<\/font><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Natural History Museum I wish Lord let me be nervous again, as confidence makes them wary,and please make me meek \u2014 as if it could make them love me \u2014but for now I want to shout Fuck and my tone may be unsympathetic, though I don\u2019t have the accent for street ranting.I don\u2019t live like […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-424","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-prose-poetry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/424","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=424"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/424\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=424"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=424"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=424"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}