Poetry

Apocalypse 14

I have a copy of a photograph

From China, prior to the revolution.

It shows a man whose eyes appears to laugh

His mouth is smiling with a fearless passion.

His executioners, using a knife

Are putting him to death on grounds of treason.

They cut his nose off, and one of his feet

And both the nipples flow with recent blood.

By means of drugs the man remains aware

That he is being cut up piece by piece

A hundred bloody parts by knife and saw

Must be removed starting with the penis.

He seems to be ecstatic tied up there

Among the crowds and executioners.

The look of joy disturbs me when I dream

And also wondering about his crime.

Apparently, that criminal was guilty

Of making an attempt to kill his king.

Like Judas, Cassius and that Brutus

Who Dante found freezing at Hell’s last rank

When he went walking in the infernal city.

But there were many doing that same thing

In those last days when I had been alive

And in the afterlife they still survive.

The light was good, and I could see around us

Such naked and disfigured bodies as

I have described. And that’s when I grew anxious,

To learn about these people, and this place,

To have my mind resolved and get some answers

“Master,” I said, “Knowledge is a great prize,

And maybe I am not the winner yet,

But tell me, please, where we now plant our feet.”

We did not halt, but talked on while we went,

And just as men are careful to avoid

The shit of dogs left on a town pavement

Just so I steered a course past severed head,

And arm and torso strewn across the ground.

“Child, son of God I call you, adopted

By our true Father, let’s elucidate

What is going on, where we are, and what is ahead.

‘This region used to be known as Bala.

You think that we have left the earth behind

But if you counted all your steps to here

From where we started, that is what you’d find.

The Vale of Clwyd is the place we were.

So much for place; and time since the world’s end?

What era do we find ourselves in prior

To the world-ending holy nuclear fire?

‘Two hundred thousand times the earth has spun

And cycled round the solar system’s heart.

And now, remind yourself what you began

When you set off with me and made a start:

This is a race, so run and run to win

To get the prize. By means of any art

By means of virtue, and by love and faith.

Adhere to me and God beyond life and death.’

‘This clarity is welcome, Master, but

Who are these people chopped and mutilated

Who lie defeated or walking about?’

‘You would have heard about that if you waited,

Next I will tell what concerns this ruined crowd,’

He said: ‘So far we’ve seen and celebrated

The burning and the conquest of indifference,

The idle and indifferent have gone hence.

‘My white horse saw to that. The further stages

Are these: I purge and burn away desire

The aimless appetitive passion’s urges;

My red knight sees to that with sword and fire.

And then, I purge and burn away to ashes

The passion in the soul to wrath and anger;

My black and deathly rider sees to that.

And finally, the passionate intellect.

‘The pale angel of death will be the last

And no man will escape or be exempt.

No men; but those men who have become gods,

Adopted sons of God, will be redeemed

I’ll pick them out at the end when all is passed.

For they will win, and they won’t be unclaimed.

And you, I very much want you to win,

So let us go, keep running, so come on.’

He said this summary, and I replied:

‘One doubt remains in me: I want to learn

How is it that these souls have simply died

When they lose passion and no longer burn?’

And he: ‘The attachment and the things they loved

The physical enjoyment and the fun

Are gone now, but the intellect remains.

But it exists only among the ruins

‘And when that intellect can find no where

A customary and habitual love,

That intellect and soul fall to despair.

Dejected and unhappy, they nose dive.’

And so, my Lord concluded his lecture.

Once, we were children, and all of us have

Had time in school to learn to read and write

Just so I was instructed by the Lord.

‘So these are the victims of their own passion

Whose bodies were the focus of their mind

And nothing left for mind to focus on?’

I pointed to the carcasses around

Among the grass near Bala and the stone

And near the water lying near at hand

Which flows in from the hills and forms a lake

Flowing to the Dee, but now filthy and dark.

‘Particularly one specific passion,’

A man said talking to me from the smoke

(For mist and smog descended once my lesson

Was over). He said: ‘You and I once spoke

For I was Chester’s MP for a season.

Defenestrated for a small mistake

Which men of all kinds stray into from love

Love uncontrolled by intellect; I have

‘Been given time to redirect the kiss

I gave a woman.’ Then I recognised

The speaker, and I asked him: ‘Who are these?’

‘All men and women who hypothesised

That having flatted all our hierarchies

Removed the king, they then democratised

All moral order, so bad was made good,

The British order was decapitate.

‘That is Alexander Johnson; lacking rule

And lacking any pyramid to climb

He found himself in absolute control

Of England, though there was no sense in him.

Here lies he, not for things political;

Truly he made the war in Ukraine come

And kept it going. But we find him here

So mutilated for his character.

‘A headless, acephalic country now.

And with a fool in charge whose only master

Was his own penis. So we don’t ask how

The land has finally come to disaster.’

And as a man’s head hits the soft pillow

And dreams come softly tripping fast and faster

Until the intellect is overcome

So headless, pleasure seekers stole my home.