Poetry

Apocalypse 7

The massif central of Snowdonia

Is pock marked with stone tombs and megaliths.

They used to build their burial mounds round there

By digging down to make circular pits.

The roof was rock suspended in the air

Above a door and walls from massive slates.

They used to cover them with mud and grass

My lord and I saw such things from our place.

And there they were, the people who survived,

Just like my people, Chadwicks out of Holt

Who had existed and you could say lived

In time without record, obscure, difficult.

My people. “How are stone age men contrived

To be here, when the whole race has been culled,

And raised afresh? That stripling at the fire

And that one dressed in skins should not be here.”

That’s what I said, my master answered me:

“The savages, or forebears, as you will

Made straight for this place when I set them free.

This is the place they died in once, this hill,

O simple man, this hill the place to die

Again.” And vegetable and animal

And other objects of the ancestral mind

Were those to which, in the new life, they inclined.

“But don’t despise them, for in their way these

Had unity with God. By meditation.

And no distraction, like to theosis,

Close to the direct world of pure creation.

In this world, in the world, more can be less.”

And then, like some enormous and pale machine

The first and white horse strutted into view

Pricking the plane to bring its work in play.

That white horse had a rider in the saddle,

And after it so many thousand souls

Were coming with their weapons like a rabble,

With real machines and noisy vehicles

Surrounding him, so he was in the middle.

“Who is the rider?” I said. “One with balls

Or with testosterone to do the worst.

See him there, at the side, Edward I.”

I did not learn concerning that white rider

But looked to see the king who conquered Wales.

And colonised it, with his master builder,

Who built eight castles to enclose the hills

And wrap the Welsh up like some giant spider.

Llewelyn, the last prince, history tells

Was caught and ambushed in some dim forest

His last remains, a coffin, in Llanrwst.

The Norman Edward rolled up Scots and Irish

And there I saw him do the same out there

Behind the rider. For, they made a great rush

And poured across the fields to make their war

On those small signs of life and that small parish And those first sparks of human life we saw.

They ripped up stones and smashed the settlements

Reducing things down to their elements.

“They liked destruction when they were first born,

And now under compulsion they do it,”

My master and my lord said. I would turn

And not relate the things before my sight.

In fact, I turned away as they came on

And could not watch. “It’s going to be alright,”

My master said as if I were a child

While those first villages were put to the sword.

Among the wreckers of that numberless mob

Filthy with blood and dirt, and out of breath

Two men approached us, having done their job,

Moving uneasily until they both

Were within speaking distance: “Here’s the rub,”

The one said, “My friend here died in his youth,

And me, too. Yet we recognise your face

A man who lived and carried on our race.

“I am that Keele who drowned in the Atlantic

Shovelling coal into the engines of

HMS Stanley. This is Stephen Chadwick

Who died below at Gresford. By your leave

Pray for us. We have had no greater luck

Being reborn. We were childless above

When we died in the waters and the fires.

Pray for us now, brothers of your grandsires.”

I shook their hands and turned my head aside

So that they do not see the tears which flow.

“I’ll pray for you,” and then, laughing I said:

“Will you go on after this murder, though?

After the mass destruction that you did?”

I smiled, and they, for making jokes was how

We used to deal with bad things without sense.

“Pray for us two, too young for descendants.

“Like Arjuna, disgusted by the waste

Or by its prospect on the field of battle,

I had no choice, except to do my best

Under the ground, and there to show my mettle.

I had no time, as you had time, for Christ

And not much school or time to become subtle.

So think of me, and of my coaling mate.”

The two of them went back to do their bit.

And all in front of those two there were men

And demons with black garments. Athe back

Coming, in fact, to get those two again,

After they left me, pushing them to work.

I stood and watched. Halliburton

Was written on a wagon and a truck,

The business name of those who gave employment

To businessmen who took so much enjoyment

14 When they went starting wars in distant parts

George Bush, Dick Cheyney and those other goons

Who made a killing using martial arts

On Iraqis, and Russians and Afghans.

And those that they employed were thereabouts

Still working for them as they had done once.

War is an old old way of getting rich

But in my time they enjoyed it too much.

The crowds of millions crowded round their banner

And round the white horse dug mines and smashed homes

So when they found some simple man out there

They murdered him, and put him in the flames.

And where they found an antique burial chamber

Or wooden house and outpost of those times

They flattened it and blasted it to bits.

So much for origins and burial pits.

I think I saw, beside our King Edward,

The man from Ithaca, Odysseus

Whose intellect and insight delivered

The keys to Troy town with that lying horse,

And caused the streets inside to flow with blood.

Returning home, after a wandering course,

He killed another hundred with his bow.

I did not get to speak to that hero.