Poetry

Apocalypse 25

Creator and destroyer of the earth

Father almighty, let me have a Muse,

My words are weak, my memory turns from death

My intellect refuses to compose;

The things that happened in the aftermath

Are too sublime. Father, give me a voice.

I have described what happened in this book,

The journey just as far as Abersoch

The voice shouting ‘Go on’ could still be heard

Nietzsche had gone ahead at his own pace.

So I was left alone there with my Lord.

“This is the land where poet R. S. Thomas

Served as a priest until he had retired.

He came to Wrexham to recite his verse

I heard him there; he was led by a girl

Leaning on her to walk he was so frail.”

My Lord replied: “This is the Miocene

The time’s so old that all the British isles

Are homogeneous, without coast line.

We’ve gone too far and walked so many miles.”

“You mean, not only are the people gone,

But now my county, God’s country of hills,

And waterfalls and sea and solitude

Is gone as well?” Then “Yes,” was all he said.

“But where are we going, then? Why did we leave?

I cannot bear it!” That was how I spoke.

That was the instant that the thing I love

Was taken from me and when my heart broke.

“This land, it is my cradle and my grave

It was my parent, and make no mistake

I cannot live without my property

Without my land; I do prefer to die.

“Alas,” I said. And yet, we carried on.

Some miles onward, through that blob of Europa

While I said nothing, tired and woebegone.

Perhaps it was a day, or to be proper

A week had passed, of darkness and of rain,

When, if we had used compass, pen, and paper

We came to where St David’s town had been.

Where David’s church once was, there were still men.

There was a barricade and behind that

A dark infernal place of resistance.

“You asked me, where we’re going? Here’s our route.

Beyond this disfigured intelligence,

In order to destroy, to annihilate,

To erase the traces, and do violence -

Behold!” Then from behind us the pale horse

With its white rider bearing a red cross.

It made its slow way pricking on the plane

Over the wall. We followed in its tracks.

The horseman swung his sword about within.

Inside were the results of his attacks

And he continued, killing all the men

Who were inside in packs like homeless dogs.

“What’s going on? What murder do I see?”

I said, making way through the butchery.

“Ask him,” my guide and master said answered me.

It was a bleeding man cut through the heart.

“Sir, who are you,” I asked him tenderly,

And he: “The Chancellor at Thatcher’s court

Sir Geoffrey Howe, builder of the City.”

“I pity you and how these wounds must hurt;

What have you done for God’s angel to kill you

And leave you bleeding in this barren milieu?”

“It’s obvious, to anyone with mind,

Or intellect, that evil is what we did.

In place of spirit we enthroned the pound.

The time the Falklands Isles were invaded

I planned to de-industrialise the land;

To close the ports and docks of Merseyside

Shut down the mines and unemploy the weak

And having done this dark Satanic work

“To build a British Singapore on Thames

And draw in wealth from every state on earth

Into the City. From the world’s regimes

The cash poured in. It worked. And it gave birth

To the Isle of Dogs, the summit of all crimes,

Its glass skyscrapers gleaming in the south

Such things as extra-terrestrials could admire

And acts only the devil could inspire.

“Ungoverned places, places without law

Without the oversight of government

Justice or reason,” he would have said more,

But died. My master took me by the hand

And we went further into blood and gore.

These clever renegades had made a stand

Against God with their money and their power

And got so far until this final hour.

Shouting and crying went on deep inside.

“The rich can fly, and the rulers they can flee,

Stripping the wealth and labour from the crowd

Before secreting it, completely free

Of any vote, of any judge,” he said.

“Globalists, but not by conspiracy.

Rather, the money led them by the nose,

Lacking the true light, they just had no choice.”

These words came to me in that slaughterhouse,

With a familiar tone. I turned to see

The tied back hair and bearded manly face

Of one who taught at Chester and Surrey.

“Derek Alsop, leave quickly, leave this place!

There’s death here, cutting down everybody.”

And he: “Don’t panic. How did you survive?

I knew you when you had no hope or love.

“When the erotic instincts ravaged you,

And evil was your ideal. But you made it.

So I, too, years before I died, just knew,

That God was leading me, and speaking. But

The country as a whole was shot right through

With evil rulers, a shiftless elite,

For, what determines how a nation fares

Is what the governors chose for their faith.

“’Ill fares the land, to hastening ills a prey

Where wealth accumulates, and men decay.’”

“That’s Goldsmith. What would Pope have had to say?”

I said and smiled. And he: “I saw the way,

The English courts tore up your family,

The family itself. The enemy

Is lying all around us in this pile,

Let God, the only ruler, finally rule.”