Poetry

Judgement 13

While I was making tracks from Canterbury,

One hour since I had left there, I could hear

The sound of drums and pipes come after me.

The future is all dark, unknown, unclear

But what’s behind and past is what you see;

All time and history is laid out there,

Like some infinite map which looks all ways

So it provides a true prophetic gaze.

The fields of possibilities are open

To one who looks in front and sees the past.

And looking back I saw the following happen.

My intimate familiar Holy Ghost

My comforter and counsellor and weapon

He left me some time waiting in the waste,

I saw him, like refracted light in water,

Return. Let me describe, so you know better.

It was a troop or pageant that I saw;

A human shape was sitting on a lion

And that gigantic beast and its one rider

Were at the front of some column or line.

While I supposed that it was Jesus there,

Who sat in that heraldic lion’s mane

I thought so since his face resembled mine

And yet, something infinitely divine.

And after that, a dragon coloured red

As if it were the regimental goat

Because it was in harness, and being led

By someone with a jerkin which was white

And decorated with a scarlet rood.

A fight broke out, a savage brutal fight

Between the red one and a white dragon

That rose out of the water with a din.

The end was that the white conceded and

The red cross knight assisted killing it.

Three other robust men followed behind

One with the holy cross twisted a bit

To forty five degrees; they understand

Who this man was, those who have any wit.

And then two more completed that tight crew

More pale and western than the other two.

And then a long parade came after these.

By this time there was no life on the earth

And all of these were going to paradise

Like some exodus of life after death.

As unaccountable to me it was

As it is when they say the sun is both

Atomic fusion compressed to the max,

And also, or instead, a plasma flux,

When atoms, stripped of all negative charge,

Gather together to produce the sun

And swirl until their voltage is so large

That it can burn. So they came through the dawn

So many going on a pilgrimage.

A fat aggressive farming type of man

Was in the next rank, wearing a top hat;

And then a king with broad sword after that.

And after these a green man armed with a bow,

And others who composed a certain tribe.

I guess that John Bull was one of these two

And Arthur, our first king. But here’s the rub

I saw Italian Machiavelli, too,

And others who could teach us to survive.

My eyes were peeled and riveted to this,

So it surprised me when I heard a voice.

“When Dante saw the gyres of paradise

And all the ladders going down to hell

And pathways upward in the other place,

His pits and hills were very suitable;

But not in England where men get to chose

How high or low they rise or how they fall.

And nothing is as fixed as Dante saw,”

I looked aside and noticed someone there.

It was a man who looked like a scarecrow

Stood in the waters, bearded and wild eyed,

Like that therianthrope Jean-Jacques Rousseau

Who was enmeshed in roots at the roadside

That Shelley in the ‘Triumph’ says he saw.

"Each man in Britain takes the greatest pride

In being free to govern his affairs

And to be free of guilt before his peers.

"Perhaps the greatest innovative change

The English made was that the starting point

Of any trial by law is innocence.

I am that man who some foreign agent

Had killed by car bomb, to exact revenge;

I did not die, because another went

Before me to the car, my Daria,

My clever daughter came before me here.

"And I endured life for a little while

For God’s sake; for the prohibition on

Self-murder. I am waiting for this file

To make itself available for one

Like me; and see my lost beloved girl."

Then I replied: "Alexander Dugin,

This is a British place, and you have said

That in the end that was the other side."

And he: "The Spirit shows you what you are

And what you need; while you see Gladstone there

Who served the Empire as Prime Minister

And lived at Hawarden, just five miles from where

You were yourself a local, I am aware

Of other souls going by." And there they were:

I saw that Christian and that nationalist

Go by me there, and make his way out west.

"Besides," he said, "I do not hold a grudge.

The calibre of rulers in the end

Was very low. Anyone fit to judge

Was cast aside and left without a friend.

England was once world history’s leading edge.

I know it. For ten years we might have joined

And been a single union: Russia and

Britain. Those years that Blair ruled over the land."

And I said: "Yes, good economic fact

And commerce that we followed made us great.

And beat the Soviets, and the Warsaw Pact."

But he replied: "No. What brought down that state

Was threefold: first, the Church made most effect,

Because the Soviets could not deny God.

And local patriotic fervour rose,

Then Solidarity. These were the cause."

Meanwhile, with splashing and the sound of drums

The pageant made its way. Dugin and I

Were not invited yet. In different times

The Orthodox have done their liturgy

In secret, clandestine in catacombs,

Communicating with God secretly.

Just so I felt, cast out and set apart.

But what came next requires another start.