Poetry

Apocalypse 20

We went to the Horseshoe Falls one afternoon

That year the nation locked itself at home,

Crossing the border into Llangollen

Some friends and I enjoying the summer time.

The sluggish Dee bends there and settles down

A rope hangs from a tree, and you can swim.

And where Lloyd George is buried at Criccieth

A river flows away toward the north

And if a couple follow by its side

A mile or so they’ll find those violets

That prosper on the banks and in the shade

All shooting up and playing in the roots

Of little sessile oaks. Children have made

A rope swing there. If he removes his boots

A man can swing across the deep water.

These were the memories that I had there.

Now I request the assistance of God’s mother,

You who have helped me, verifiably,

You who have given help to me before,

Inspire my song, tell me what I could see.

The Lord is with you, ask Him to inspire

My simple English words and sing through me.

The city lying in its blood received

The word: Live, and hearing the word it lived.

There were some ropes here, too, from some damned trees,

Tense ropes with bodies hanging at the ends

Which draughty winds were blowing in a breeze.

‘What is this group of unfortunate friends

All hanged together?’ I said. My lord: ‘These,

Are Anti-Christ.’ Now, typing this, my hands,

Grow tired, my stomach turns to think about

These honoured people and how they turned out.

These swaying souls were living, I could see it;

Lenin was there, that enemy of man,

Whose first act was to take away the vote

From priests and nobles, then confiscation

Of what they needed. Next to him his mate,

That Josef Goebbels who, when he was done,

Had stripped the altars and the natural justice

From Germans, pledging good, breaking his promise.

And that monk, Luther, who set out to check,

The money making aspect, that alone.

And there were others strangled at the neck.

‘Like those described in poems by Villon,

These sorry men could give themselves a shake,

And ask for mercy, and perhaps live on,

For everyone has sinned and should be hung

But these ones pushed God out, to get along.’

When man works he feels age coming on him,

He swings his tools and plies the welder’s torch

Reflecting that he wants a bigger home

He wonders how his life was spent so much

In gaining pennies when it was his dream

To be another man; he meets his match

And is outdone by unscrupulous types

And says that wickedness wins out, perhaps.

And that is when he asks, Does God exist?

Or, should I care, and should I join a party

To get revenge and be a socialist?

When Anthony the Great thought in this way

He told himself and others: ‘The oppressed

Should look within, should be silent, should pray

There is the real life. Let God deal with this,

With inequalities and injustice.’

A crowd of soldiers brought another victim

Another Anti-Christ, and I am bound

To keep the man’s name secret out of shame

For him and me, for he was of my land,

A king in fact, who wanted to rename

The Faith as faiths. They pulled him from the ground

With rope around his throat. And from his mouth:

‘Let me go. Yes, I said things in my youth,

‘I’m sorry now. God, have mercy on me!’

I turned to my guide to see his response

‘He will not hang,’ he said. They set him free.

The broken king stepped back and then at once

Ran through the trees grasping his liberty.

The people who had brought him took their chance

To follow after and escape as well,

I stopped one, stood between him and his goal.

‘What is your name, and why are you employed

In this grim task in this last meeting place?’

‘Trawsfynedd bore me, at Paschendale I died.

Herder of sheep, poet, lover of peace,

Hedd Wyn they called me at the Eisteddfod.

Conscripted by the state to fight its wars,

Conscripted now in this place by our God.

I’m glad to talk to you and to be heard.

‘These elite men were given space to rule

And for the things they did in privilege

With responsibility for every soul,

God drew himself away from our age.

The tide of faith went out leaving us all

Open to human ambition and rage.

Why were we born in this period of drought

To be faithful in secret or else not?

‘War and disorder on a massive scale

And everywhere the cry for more and more

Followed by more attempts at state control.

It was not always so. Owain Glyndwr

Was not a happy individual

And led the Welsh in some old pointless war

And yet, when Henry Fifth and him were fighting

It was a private thing they were debating.

‘In eras where God lived among his people

Men knew the scope of their private ambition.

So that the heart inside and the stone chapel

Were more real than the outward faced confusion.

But I should move,’ and following his example,

I turned about, and yet made this confession:

‘I see him, there, my fellow wanderer.

Do you see him, Christ, our God, him over there?’

And he, peering about straining his eyes

So that they were like black cracks in slate rock

Looked to the place where my true master was.

‘I do not see him. But as we two speak

Our lord and my guide sees the both of us,

See, there,’ pointing; yet, when I had a look,

I could not see. The greatest happiness

To know my master is with each of us.