Poetry

Apocalypse 19

‘Now we are on the field of Armageddon.

A battle unfolds here, see where like stars

Men burn and wander over heaven's curtain.’

Across the field I saw those distant fires.

One man I saw ignite all of a sudden,

He sat quite near me on the dreary grass

And like that famous monk of Vietnam

He poured gas on himself and turned to flame.

My lord surveyed the scene; he spoke and saw;

And I replied: ‘Like Cheyenne dog soldiers

With flaming headdress, warriors to the core,

These human beings, all your creatures,

A certain elite strength has brought them far,

And yet they burn to death like protestors;

They burn themselves and also hunt these beasts

Look, how they roll up whatever exists.’

I said that to my Lord, my master Jesus,

And pointed to the herds of animals

That men were corralling into the fissures

In time as space, great cataracts and falls,

Where nature and creation and the senses

Were being wrapped up into something else.

‘Why don’t they run ahead as you and I

Have moved on forward further and away?’

And he: ‘These men are corralled in their turn

By my black angel keeping them on track.

See him, the rider of the black passion.

They recognise him and he knows his flock:

Impassioned angry incensed forceful men.

Who cannot go forward and have no way back.

Now, see the world noumenal will collapse

And them go down with it in the abyss.’

So we moved on, and came across the form

Of someone sitting, without hope and sad.

My master halted grasping at my arm.

‘Talk to this one, before he turns aside

And sets himself alight. He has a claim

To having made the war and suicide

Of this last battle so well stocked with souls

He broke all institutions and all walls.’

‘Who are you?’ I said, kneeling in the dirt

As one kneels to a child, and eye to eye,

Tells off, or comforts them if they are hurt.

‘I am that Campbell that by truth or lie,

No matter which, coerced the English heart

To give up its tradition, culture, law

When Blair had made a socialist regime

Breaking the Lords, inventing the Supreme

‘Court, and breaking the nations into four

And cutting everyone from history

And starting left wing pointless global war,

That no one noticed, being born yesterday.’

And I: ‘You made it so that my daughter

Was banned from seeing me, and by the way

Had men come for me, to imprison me

At midnight, men who were born yesterday.’

We looked toward the fields of living dead

Spontaneously erupting into light

‘How many English souls here resurrected

Have no more grounding in eternal life

Than animals, because of what you did?

Pour petrol and light up!’ I said. ‘Enough,’

It was my guide whispering into my ear.

The man did so, and burned. I did not care.

And there were others, too along our path

Like that Most Reverend Jasper who rewrote

In compromising, unspiritual wrath

The Book of Prayer that the Spirit taught

To Cranmer in the turbid aftermath

Of schism in the West. Jasper had thought

To make the Holy book suit atheists

And pull conservatism by the roots.

‘He burns,’ I said. ‘A reverend and a priest.’

That man was trying to run and roll about.

‘Can there be mercy to this one at least?’

I said. My Lord replied: ‘It is too late.

This is eternity and both the past

And future are determined by the state

A man was in when he made his decision

In life. Ron Jasper simply has no vision.’

Now I have noticed with the path of years

My heart is weaker, and panic attacks

Developed in me when the nuclear wars

Began, at the beginning of these works.

Sometimes when thinking of my faults and fears

My heart beats hard and then my knees relax.

I fainted. Fearing I had compromised

And like so many failed to live with Christ.

As when a computer is rebooted

The operating system wakes up first

And does routines secret and yet needed,

So I, when waking, seem to have regressed

To basics, for, next to me in the mud,

I found my God and leader, beloved Christ,

But also one who hailed from Gresford, too,

And taught there at the school centuries ago.

‘Don’t fail,’ he said. ‘Be hard, and run, just run,

As, I did. But, it pains me so to boast.’

He spoke quite hoarsely, that saint, Richard Gwyn,

His neck visibly, gloriously still bruised

From where they hung him, when he said the Queen

Was not the Church’s head but was at least

The sovereign and true ruler of all Wales.

‘It rained when they hanged me, and see, rain falls.’

The gentle martyr raised me to my feet.

‘And do you think, Sir, that the Church of Rome

With lands and armies like a worldly state,

Was really the heir of Christ, and God’s true home?’

He smiled, and we walked on. ‘I do, and yet,

I wish that they learned from Byzantium,

And tried to read the Bible as a prayer,

Demanding of us withdrawal and no power.

‘I’ve seen St Bernard of Clairvaux moving

Along the tracks we’ve taken, you and I.

He also has come down from the top rung,

And, from beyond the heavens and the sky,

He was brought low with us, for Crusading,

To make amends perhaps.’ And that is how

The two of us discussed, while other men

Were killing and being killed on that dark plane.

If you have read this chapter of my book,

Perhaps the holocaust has passed you by,

And I am interested in your luck,

And want to help you. On any journey

Take bitter citrus fruits for, when you lack,

Your skin can rot, skin and bone fall away.

Orange and lemon. And before a strange meal

Eat little, wait, to ensure it does not kill.