Revelation of John

Revelation

Here comes an angel with keys

jangling language and laughter,

leaving truth for what’s after;

here comes an angel with keys.

 

She’ll open up your eyes, John,

trading sweets and spices,

with smiles and devices,

she’ll open up your eyes.

 

You fear her careful kisses

lest they leave a mark

of a beast upon your heart;

you fear her careful kisses.

 

There goes the angel with keys,

offering softness and life;

you turn back to sacrifice;

there goes the angel with keys.

 

That was just a dream, John,

that was just a dream;

love can flow like a stream, John:

go and find your stream.

 

2013

Angel On Gower

Sometimes I sit with sheep in the fields,

sometimes I swim a cove with the seals,

sometimes I sleep on soft broad sands;

today, I am settled with scones and jam,

invisible in the crammed Surfside Café,

 

sending my blessings to one on the deep,

astride a board, watching for waves,

applying his arms to an even beat,

(swell gets closer), paddling harder,

lifting his torso, eager to leap

 

up: the wave carries him, swifter, bolder;

I saw him fall when fear of failure

kept him looking over his shoulder,

now he’s wiser.  Wave curls smaller,

he flops his limbs back into the water,

 

an indentation                    in time,

a moment in the space of an ocean.

It’s not a journey, there’s no destination –

so he grabs the board, splashes again,

up through the florid, flailing foam.

 

When he’s exhausted, sitting in ripples,

watching others, a little envious,

knowing the time to join me has come,

we’ll meet on dark rocks, beneath a late sun

and watch his footprints fade in the sand.

 

Then I’ll show him the sheep in the fields,

we’ll swim in a hidden cove with seals,

sleep under stars on soft broad sands,

then breakfast together on toast and jam,

invisible in the crammed Surfside café.

 

2025

Newspaper left on a train (to a cow)

In Revelation chapter 6 verse 13 we are told that the stars fell from the sky, just as figs are shaken from their tree in a gale. On 15th October 1972 a cow grazing near the town of Trujillo in Venezuela was killed by a meteorite. This poem is addressed to that cow.

I doubt that many cows understand the manner of their death.

You might have heard the sonic boom and then you may,

if you did not die instantly, have been conscious of

your smashed neck and shoulder and actually stared at the boulder

and known it was connected to your closing.

 

Like you, I didn’t know it happened on the fifteenth of October

because in nineteen-seventy-two I was only four years old –

I hadn’t learnt about time and dates. Like you,

I couldn’t pronounce “Trujillo” and “Venezuela” and a sort of farmer

was pulling me by the nose through sums and stories –

my first term at school, my first fences and gates.

Now, I read in a newspaper left on a train that you are distinguished

as being the only sentient life documented

as ever having been killed by a meteorite.

 

And when I lie dying, I should expect to know more than you;

but what ‘s my story; what does it add up to? What will I see?

A farmer come to lead me through an open gate with his hand on my shoulder;

will I grasp some cosmic order, or will I have no idea what’s hit me

 

like a boulder? Will people laugh a bit as they remember me?

This train hurtles fast, through so much scenery.

 

2007.