The Final Seal Is Broken: poetry by John S A Watts

storm clouds, photograph by C.B. Harris

The Final Seal is Broken

Nigh I hear the clatter of hoofs from way beyond

the skiey veil circumfusing this spinning orb

in the fate of known due dust and sin’s stinking bond;

clatter and clatter as a trumpet sounds,

reverberating through every far span of sky;

then the cerulean ceiling rips and I absorb,

with amazed and awesome-phased eye,

the saintly host riding in heaven’s bounds,

hoofs somehow with relentless pounds

on cloud inhabited invisible air’s surface:

even-paced Time has nearly done his rounds,

the Alpha and Omega has come to settle

man’s case, garbed in shone glory and ready for battle

astride His steed with a flash of majesty bursting

forth at his arrival at the fore of His saints,

the only God for which man has been thirsting

for all his brief, busy, and broken life.

He has decided; there’ll be no complaints

in the Judgement’s courtroom,

for He is the measure of justice,

the force of full fairness is His,

whether sentence is for triumph or doom;

how fares, then, His church to be wife?

O dreadful question asked!

Better to proceed with one’s duty tasked

than ask it; and now asking’s near discontinued

for scantly are there minutes left to brood,

soon the known will be grasped.

But there, surely, the answer in a multitude

of mounted saints in white accrued

around Him as His glory is unmasked

and now His holy horde enshrouds,

the army at a halt amid the clouds,

holiness viewing worldliness

as if a decision were still to anchor,

to be summed in a sudden quietness

sweeping upon the earth and through the ranks

standing in the welkin; what’s your verdict’s summary,

O court-summoned world having gone from rank to ranker,

will there be acquittal by the gold in your banks?

O most on the contrary!

Nor will any lawyer’s polished vocabulary

persuade the heavenly constabulary

to swerve the service due of Revelation’s hymn

if it’s been preordained by Him,

every seal broken by the righteous Lamb,

none other than the Almighty I AM,

the reckoning come riding, whether a world to damn,

or whether some mysteriously surprising mercy,

driven by divine love’s unrelenting ardency,

has been arranged for a sad, fallen world,

to spare the worst lot ever hurled

into that dreadful unquenchable fire—

ah, Love Divine, is that such hard design,

to save what you desire

to save from your judgement’s hot and hell-packing ire,

that sinners to salvation may retire,

well in perfect, blessed alignment

with their glorious God for His holy pleasure,

that His glory may eternally shine

with every human soul for crown and treasure;

but that trumpet is on second assignment,

a blast sounding out to acknowledge His sent Word,

I fear the judge calls for the fiery fine

to put bloated sin to final erasure:

has He not come again bringing a sword?

At least, Lord, redeem your remainder first,

will you not surely redeem them, my Lord?

Surely a living remnant’s not cut off and cursed?

My fears are unwarranted, are they not?

After all He swore all their sins He’d blot.

Ah, and how stand I repentant to have them all blotted!

O call me not to an hour of account allotted!

For by my book I’m with the worm to rot;

but have I not by vagrant trials been proven,

my heart accrued and encompassed all given,

so from Jerusalem I’d not be riven?

Jerusalem! My highest joy!

All who oppose you the Christ shall destroy;

pen, be forsaken if you forget the bright city,

all other happiness is a temporal toy

compared to your nectareous rivers to enjoy;

all other beauty is either given to gritty

or only but partially pretty

compared to the golden spires of your towers,

your jewel-adorned walls,

the sparkling waterfalls

of your fabulous fountains furnishing the streets,

the tree of life offering healing to nations

because of the final of all oblations,

sweet sacred Jerusalem calls,

a joy abounding for infinite hours,

that never, like a world-giving prize, sours.

Ah, what is the scent of your gardens’ flowers,

and why’re the heaven-spraying showers

they feed on, that perpetually defeat

the withering of winter and blasting heat,

absent in a world that needs not their absence—

O eternity! Be not fantastically hidden

amid scenes beyond reality’s tents

or within mystery imperviously dense,

out of the view of the earth’s children,

who are forever suffering stricken and rot ridden;

heaven shrouded in darkness, where’s the sense,

does the human eye not need see the hope

that it may help the human heart to cope

with the battering dismay of life,

all this suffering, sickness, insanity, and strife?

But, wounded heart, do we not hear it in the heart?

Is there not a gentle whisper God does impart

that silently echoes of eternity’s halls,

the Kingdom of Heaven’s within that throbbing keep,

in chambers most deep, and raring to leap;

but the walls and gates of the heart, so high and locked,

needs must search out some way to be wondrously rocked;

O my ruth-wed heart, all your falls

were only so your stream of life would be unblocked!

It matters not you were disdained and mocked,

the celestial soul of love wasn’t shocked.

Ah but do I give grief to holy love,

and make sour the face of the high above?

For what trial of mine ever eclipsed His?

That a slack squire should steal heaven by vagabond means?

I do heaven amiss

To think that by my own soft suffering’s scenes

I could purchase the crown of human dreams;

and what, heart, of your giving that it more than seems?

What charity reluctant heart?

All the world given couldn’t buy a day

in heaven. Naught but the Blood opens the true way;

my heart’s assurance is He, His part,

He bore the wound of each sin’s dart.

Now I hear a shaking noise start,

rumbling from beneath, the dead saints receive their pay,

the spirits in the sky given their bodies

and start cheering, for the remainder aren’t nobodies

still living on the earth,

the last to be tested are found in worth;

but, above, His army is still arrayed,

the faithless look for eternal shame paid,

unexpectedly an account to order

of creation’s steward left long in charge;

shall a voice bellow, ‘thy trespass is large,

to promote the flesh and be commodity hoarder—'

and, terror, He has a face like pure stone

against a world guilty of neighbour’s murder—

I look up from my Bible in my room alone,

and think I hear my heart let out a groan.

O Revelation is this true to tell?

I scan lines that speak of a flaming hell,

St Julian of Norwich, will all be well?

Of course, only the Almighty can say,

only He can say what is just to pay;

but, Julian, I pray that He finds a way

that all will be well on the final day.

                                *

Avoid These Three

O envy, anger, pride,

such banners have I flied

in those vile sins’ accumulation,

committing obedience defied,

that I would know my station!

Envy, desire’s affront,

throws contentment in want,

disrupts the heart and kills sweet joy,

impoverished the soul it does haunt,

well a thing to destroy!

Overwhelming fire, anger,

paints the peaceful a stranger,

is reason’s rash incinerator,

let it not grow from strong to stronger,

but look for your Creator!

Pride, the mother of sin,

always looking to win,

trades the humble’s crown for ill honour,

desiring power over earth’s kin,

at its rise do a runner!

But obedience wins God,

balk not, nor think it odd,

for earth, we know it’s a mad place,

sweetening evil to sell as good,

O purchase not what costs in blood!

But run with faith the race

into heaven’s embrace.

_______________________

John S A Watts studied English Literature at Kingston University; he lives in sunny

West Sussex. He has had work published by the Academy of the Heart and Mind, Homeless Diamonds, Westward Quarterly, Sparks of Calliope, Down in the Dirt (scarstv),

and is due to be published by the Journal of Undiscovered Poets.

July 2024 issue