Charles Bryant: The Holy Army 

Read & Produced by The Author
(In memory of my mother Margaret Bryant née Drake 1919-2012)
THE HOLY ARMY
Light's angle paramount, oblique
and spreading like living cream
where eyelight burns; palace door ajar
and cool within. Such closeness
in the rasp of stubble hair. Fold back the hood,
uncover the stumbling icon, flesh to flesh.
Clouds of incense, marching chasubles swinging,
through the scent they ceaselessly advance
amidst the singing. Innocent voices
high in the cupola ringing, ranged around.
On tessellated floors, how ominous their treading!
The holy army comes.
What pure fool will now appear
to lead us from our hope and fear?
What light upon the tabernacle flash
embodying our fervent wish?
What eruption shall bring crashing down
the roof upon each saint and clown?
Above the bells of the capital, the bands,
the marching feet, is heard the low drone of
advancing death, squadrons of advancing death
with bombs to beat us down, throbbing the air
amid the wailing chorus of the sirens'
shrieking warning.
* * * * * * *
Time fades into the black hole of eternity,
is never seen again. No aftermath,
no mathematical certainty, not even death
amidst the shattered ruins of our city.
Meaning crumbles in upon itself
and then collapses. Irregular verbs
proliferate; language begins to fail.
The once firm fabric becomes tissue-thin;
gaping holes appear. Everything lacks
substance, starts to fade.
The meditated overwhelms the real
in a place where neither's obvious,
amid the wreckage.
"Look for that state of being" (the ragged,
wandering mendicant urges, with his tin helmet
askew upon his forehead) "where doctrine fails,
uncertainty prevails. There we find
our life-blood; there erupt in fountain-heads
the everlasting springs which form our rivers
and water all our arid, sun-baked plains.
Life is fearful; but death is the ending of fear."
So he mourned amidst the multitudes
of weeping women, fatherless children,
the prophet of the fall whose voice was cheer.
* * * * * * *
Gate of Lingering Autumn. Pouring rain.
The imperial cluster, empress and her coloured
rabble army, bedraggled and afraid,
crosses the water. The bridges are then burnt,
black smoking ruins against a stormy sky.
As always, from the north the rebels come,
the place of evil purpose. Dreams begin;
prophetic dreaming is now the norm.
Curtains parted. A piano keyboard.
We lay entwined along the very strings,
love's living music together throbbing.
Burgeoning spring's new symphony broke underground
with a rumour of song to set the stiff clods dancing
as we awoke.
The humming of the framework's stiff vibration
grew into a roaring.
Music enough for you, my love, for me,
breaking us free from the metal: harmony.
The surging of high waters in a sea
of organ voices: exultantly.
Decaying amidst the shattered splendour
she looked out upon her empire
through fading eyes. Inner conviction hardens
as outlines merge. She sees the Holy Army
distantly approaching through the gloom
of darkened morning. We await the dawn.