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Michael
Michael, heaven’s handsomest,
most decorated strategist
and highest-ranking officer,
having vanquished Lucifer
was faced with long-term unemployment.
Seeking worthwhile redeployment,
this veteran of celestial strife
settled for civilian life:
as mainstay of the Heavenly City,
he now directs the Doom Committee.
Hence, before the judgement seat
in his best wings, to meet and greet,
weigh souls and seal their destiny,
he takes position, solemnly
posts seraphim on every gate,
details four trumpeters, and waits.
Crypts burst open, tombs erupt
and mankind, bleary, incorrupt,
forsakes the temporary loam
for a last, abiding, home.
Heroes, doers of the right,
lovers, seekers after light,
may wriggle through the needle’s eye
to happiness that does not die;
but rats cast into Satan’s pit
shall never know the last of it.
Agnostic bishops, worldly priors,
libidinous apostate friars,
heretics, lapsed Methodists,
sheepish red-faced atheists,
all rise naked from the clay,
called to account on Judgement Day;
practitioners of all known sins,
tin-pot dictators, despot kings,
politicians, money-mongers,
swindlers, mobsters, those among us
thriving on abuse of power,
all condemned this dreadful hour
with crooked cops, debauched footballers,
fare evaders, nuisance callers,
blighters, rotters, cads, bad sports,
braggarts, bores of every sort,
garrulous poeticules,
founders of post-modern schools,
critics, arbiters of art
who said they had our taste at heart—
all sink the scale and, roundly damned,
slink away on God’s left hand.
From all this eschatology
I turn aside uneasily.
There’s something fixed in Michael’s stare
that follows people everywhere
and I’d describe as threatening.
This angel of our reckoning,
this painted menace, seems to see.
Why won’t he take his eyes off me?
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Poet’s Note: Rogier van der Weyden’s polyptych of The Last Judgement (c 1450), which inspired this poem, was commissioned for the Hôtel-Dieu, Beaune, Burgundy, where it is still housed.
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Martin Briggs lives in Suffolk, England. He only began writing in earnest after retiring from a career in public administration, since when he has been published in various publications on both sides of the Atlantic.
Martin, you captured the names of so many rapscallions in your marvelous poem. What a great way to conclude with feelings of guilt from an ineffable being that seems to have eyes piercing to the very soul.
Thank you Roy. Perhaps I keep the wrong company….
Great stuff, Martin. I would have said you’ve left off ‘screen zombies’ from the list of the damned, but that might reduce the flow of those worthy enough to cross the threshold of the Pearly Gates to a trickle.
Thanks for an entertaining read.
Thank you Paul. I’d describe a screen zombie as sinned against rather than sinning, but in the last analysis it depends on whether the Pearly Gates are accessible using satnav.
This is grand, Martin, and precisely seasonal, as we have the feast day coming up on the 29th. Maybe you’ll inspire a bit more attention to Michaelmas! The rhythm and rhyme in the poem are masterful, as is the apocalyptic tone breaking through in stanza 3. I’m glad to know the scene was set by Van der Weyden, as I was beginning to wonder where Saint Peter disappeared to. I imagine he, like Michael, would be as careful as yourself not to leave out concern about things we are likely to consider very minor sins, though these, like the big ones, can be committed with malice and godlessness. Excellent last line! It is a painted menace–but may we all deal well with anything real behind it.
‘Tis grand, Martin, and I had more to say, but it seems to have been moderated away. I’ll be back in hopes of wriggling through the needle’s eye to re-supply it.
Thank you, good moderator, for locating it and saving me the squeeze!
I claim no credit for the timing – I had completely overlooked the rapid approach of Michaelmas, so thank you for reminding me!
Martin, I love this toe-tapping, Belloc-esque-cautionary-tale-style smile of a poem that comes with a shiver for all those who catch Michael’s eye… I’m laughing nervously.
Michael’s “long-term unemployment”; the “Doom Committee”; “to meet and greet” (sounds like a job for handshaking ushers?); and my favorite laugh-out-loud line: “founders of post-modern schools” — you have portrayed the archangel in wildly humorous fashion! Yet you conclude with the reminder that his eyes will be turned on ourselves, as well.
Great poem!
I have always wondered how an archangelic being came to be accorded the honorific “saint,” since this is usually given to human martyrs. One should not fail to notice that Michaelmas coincides with Oktoberfest, and I enjoy apocryphal stories involving classic entities.