Poetry

Judgement 12

Confined in that grey tiredness of a dream

Which cannabis is said to bring about

I sat and had no sense of moving time

As we imagine ghosts and dead men sit.

My thoughts were looping round around the same

And could not break. I tried to meditate

But could not. When a tired man tries to pray

He is defective in his inner eye;

Visions more real than real reality

Without connection to him or to reason

Distract him, welling up, fading away.

I saw the giant body of a person

Laid out prone on the ground persuading me

To stay just where I was in that hard prison.

A huge angel in red and black and yellow

With faces three and mouths gaping and hollow.

It was immense, that body on the floor.

Its mouths were chewing with nothing in them.

It was that Devil that the Poet saw.

Some ammonites were living around him

It was the era of the base creature

When living things took trilobitic form

And ate and shat and mated before time

Before trees, in the age of mist and slime.

I was like Robert Johnson, guitarist,

Who waited at the crossroads for the devil

At twilight in the dark where two roads crossed.

‘It is my fault that I’m trapped at this level;

I let my love for Godhead go to waste.

And got involved in suchlike kinds of evil

As motivating my declining tribe;

I failed to work with spirit as my job.’

It might have been a thousand thousand years

That I was waiting with that company.

Until, at last, a face that looked like yours

Or like my father, both one and many;

It was a face I seemed to recognise.

This person stood, then knelt down on one knee.

And though at first his voice was like a bird,

I understood, as if I were Siegfried.

‘Three mouths that massive Satan used to use

To eat three traitors. And the best of us

Have been deceived and been tricked by his ruse.

There are good ways to live, and evil ways;

But Orthodoxy does away with lies

And Orthodoxy teaches happiness.

There are three faculties in man’s nature

His intellect, his action, his desire.

‘And threefold is a good society:

The thinkers, soldiers, and those in production.

So, there are three perversions of these, too.

Through lying, through revolt, and through destruction.

The good is shown by Christianity

And ruin followed every other faction.’

He put his hand out, raised me to my feet,

My legs were hurting and so I reach out

And took his shoulder. In my gratitude

For kindness in so desolate a place,

I found I could not speak a single word.

He went on: ‘See, that’s John Locke, of your race.

He was a Liberal, believed in God,

But Liberalism is the well of lies

It teaches that a man is on his own

And born with rights, that he can go alone.

‘But this is not the case. Orthodoxy

Describes the human being as he is.

That’s Adam Smith there, look and you can see,

Another good man who failed to be wise.

They devastate your land with what they say.’

And I, regaining some of my focus,

Said: ‘Spirit, guide, my best self, thanks for this,

What of the second caste, the guards, soldiers?’

‘The men of action, guardians they are.

There is the Orthodox and proper way,

And then there’s Tony Eden over there,

Aneurin Bevan, good men in their day,

But Christians not so much after the war.

Rather, they engineered society,

And had to be munched in the Devil's mouth

Because they were not Orthodox enough.’

‘I see them,’ I said, ‘Will they be released,

Like me?’ He nodded. ‘Can I talk with them?’

He shook his head: ‘These things are in the past.

With every generation it’s the same,

They’re all alike, they do not put on Christ.

The third caste are the people. They consume,

They work or they destroy when they’re betrayed.’

I saw no one I knew among the crowd.

Now it began to rain and we were walking,

Around the stretched out huge leviathan

Which gulped and farted as its means of talking.

We went toward the cross, and then within

The church at Canterbury tired and aching;

But in the shrine I took of my burthen

While I was there. ‘It was a long nightmare,

This afterlife, and what I lived before,’

I said, ‘But how did you know that the Church

Would keep you safe and heal your illnesses?’

Even in the candle light and with research

I could not see who, with such kindnesses,

Had led me there and cared for me so much.

‘How did I turn away from heresies,

And find the Orthodox? Souls higher yet

Than I, will find you soon and teach you that.

‘But this is basic: you must learn to know

And love the Father, that rule is the first.

Nothing makes any sense, nothing is true

Unless this happens. After, learn to trust

That when you speak to him he will hear you.

But how I came to know these things at last,

Would mean me telling you my history

Something we keep covered in mystery.

‘I never told you, never told a soul

Although the opportunities were there.

I used to ride in the lead vehicle

Commanding the logistics in the war;

Held up by snipers, which is typical,

I made my way with the use of direct fire.

Tents at the roadside, ration packs and dirt.’

‘You got your second oak leaf doing that,’

I said. Then he: ‘We reached a major town.

And breached its walls. It was without reward.

The buildings had already been knocked down;

The houses had been burned, all black and charred.

The enemy, civilians, they were gone,

Supposing that I am using the right word:

They had been killed, and shrunk to quarter size,

Or they were melted to a pool of ooze.

‘Or turned to ash which wind threw at the wall.

Sometimes, before I turned my eyes away,

I saw remains and bones which were quite small,

Which had been children once. And this is why.’

He stopped and turned aside, forcing a smile.

‘Your next adventure takes you to Ely.

The third day of this judgement is beginning.

You'll go alone; take what I’ve been explaining.’