Poetry

Judgement 2

“A man is a blanket too short for the bed,

He gets pulled up and down, never enough.

The average soul, the good man, or the bad

A man with eczema scratching at his stuff

Digging his nails in, til his nails draw blood.

His own adversary for all his life.

And as by an autoimmune reaction

He fights himself, and counteracts his action.

“For whereas Saint Isaiah for three years

Went naked as a sign, and wore at most

A leather belt to cover up his arse

The insolent man makes sure that he is dressed

Revealing to the world his upper face,

His nose and mouth, so as to look his best,

Forgetting that mouth and that nose below

Which carry on despite the upper show.”

“So he despises what he needs to know.”

These words came to me when I reached the torch.

A firelight held aloft by one or two,

Men who were gathered round a kind of porch

Around a tunnel entrance. “I’m Plato,

Here to direct you underneath this arch,

Into the underworld to face Judgement

Come get inside into your element.”

I put my hand out like a gentleman

And he reciprocated with his own.

“My element is in this tunnel, then?”

And he: “The world fabric is cut and torn.

The stitched up cloth and dyed and sewn linen,

Is pushed aside so the world is reborn

As what it was always: divine idea.

The world is wrecked, to let the real appear.

It falls apart. But it is safe in here.”

He said, and: “Do you hear the Holy Ghost?”

And I replied: “His voice? I do not hear.”

I had no guide, and in truth, I was lost.

What followed was a kind of overture,

For just as Wagner and Mozart composed

Recurrent themes of music for their plays,

And played those themes before the curtain rose,

So at the entrance to the underground

Inside the limestone gallery there inside,

Within that darkness so dark and profound,

There were some people who were on my side,

Who, as they were associates of my mind

When I was living, were so when I died.

They were Tories and patriots in love

With the supreme things of the world above.

Reader, I cannot tell you all our talk,

But I saw Parnell, leader and betrayed

In Parliament, who almost did the work

Of giving Ireland Home Rule, and had made

Justice to make injustice crack and break;

But all things fail, though he had tried and tried.

The others there in that cloacal dark

Included one Pope wrote for, Bolingbroke.

Now Henry St John, this he said to me:

“England was not a place for patriots,

But God’s land and your land, your property,

A place on Earth. The people thrives or rots.

Actuated by fame and by money

The politicians utilise their votes

To enrich themselves and devastate their home,

And yet their picture stays inside the frame.

“The weak and leaderless live in a dream,

And do not lift an eyelid or a hand,

They let the bad and ugly have the fame;

So, uncontested psychopaths ascend.”

And Coleridge, that Tory, said the same,

But Pitt and Eisenhower were mentioned,

Leaders at times when Christendom and God

Were real for once, and it was understood.

I asked the torch bearer to stop a while

And talk with Bradley, and with Coleridge,

Idealists. And then I said: “Do tell,

Is time still going backwards in its march?

And is the pathway onwards down this hole?”

And he: “I am myself making research.

But grace and light have led me to this place

We are in Wales, and into England pass.

“The atmosphere and living things above

On solid ground are much too dangerous.

Your trial is up there; we should make a move.

Don’t worry you are not alone in this

We all are guilty.” So, having to leave,

Regretting doing so, into the maze

I walked, torch in hand, in my element.

Like Theseus inside the labyrinth

Within that tomb that Daedalus designed

For Minos and his damaged sinful son;

Such it appeared, with arrets all unsigned,

And branching off to sides in the limestone.

The rock was dripping like it had been mined

By water flowing under a mountain

And making way into the open air

Once having broken through the rock down there.

And as I walked my conscience said to me:

“Not here. Not here,” or “Yes,” to every turn.

Sat to the side in one great gallery,

I noticed someone watching. It was one

Who made his living at a factory

In Shropshire on the weighbridge so as to earn

His wages, though he was a great scholar

Of Greek, Latin, and our vernacular.

“You are Peter Reading,” I said, “I regret

To have learned the other day, in life’s dominion,

You died ten years before without a pot

To piss in. A real crime in my opinion

But that is how the UK loved its prophet.”

He stood, and said: “I never asked anyone

To either read or pay me for my books,

But what I saw is exactly how it looks,

“Today and here.” “And now we must be tried,”

I said, and he: “It’s there, that door opens,

I think it opens on the test. I’ve stayed

And waited to pluck up the confidence

To enter. I will go first, out of pride.”

He disappeared, and watching him go hence,

I waited, and then followed after him

And walked into a giant open room.

A great white room, where candles burned for light,

An altar at the back behind a screen

And naturally no windows, but instead

Paintings of saints in the style of the icon,

There was no minotaur or judgement seat

But rather a young woman on her own,

Unless you count the baby on her knee,

But no one else there. Christ’s Nativity.