Poetry Magazines - The best collection of poetry magazines online - Simon Armitage

For some months I had been attending Pastor William’s services at The Church of True Believers. It suited me. There was no need to grapple with deep theological problems. The Pastor raged against fornication, the devil’s sup and how in the coming age of annunciation, the evil one will be slain.

The church was a leaky and draughty tin roofed tabernacle and the flock rarely exceeded fifteen. But as I say, it suited me.

One Sabbath morning — I recall it was sleeting and the stove wasn’t giving out much heat — there was a sudden sound of splintering wood from behind the organ. The church lit up with a blinding light. And before us all stood the Angel Gabriel. Just like that. He lifted his arms and said the Lord was pleased with the Church of True Believers and held it to be the one truth of all the churches that worshipped him.

Gabriel began pointing at individual members of the congregation. You, Mr Saltsby he said, go, give succour to the poor. You, Mrs Abbotson, tend to the sick. He pointed directly at me and instructed me to go forth, heal the sick. And her light entered me. I had become a chosen one.

It is slightly awkward being made a disciple with special powers. I was due to go on my holidays the following week and I can tell you the Missus was none too pleased when I told her I had been chosen to go and heal the sick.

The power invested in me did not come easy. Perhaps I was too eager at first. Mistakes were made. I made a blind man lame and a woman in a supermarket screamed when I touched her forehead. It didn't matter that her arthritis had vanished. The Security man still escorted me out.

Gradually I got the hang of things. The Pastor suggested I went back to basics and begin by asking people how they were or commenting on their bad cough. Different colours radiate from people’s body parts which of course I could see. That’s the way it’s done. All I had to do was touch their forehead in the appropriate place and the patient would shake their head as if dowsing it under a shower of cold water. Miracles are performed like this.

Bit by bit I honed my skills although it took a lot out of me. By now the Missus had taken the kids off to her mother’s and the healing was using up considerable psychic energy. I would often collapse into bed, weak and exhausted.

One day — I recall it was icy and very cold — I was passing a clinic for the mentally ill when I felt a strange force pulling me inside. I found myself in a sort of day room. There were maybe thirty or forty people. Sitting around. Smoking. Watching TV. They took no notice of me. I approached one man sat slouched in a chair. I put a hand to his forehead: A slight fizz and a shake of his head: “Hey! What’s happened?” I go from person to person healing and bestowing the rank of normal on all.

Another door reveals a ward with people lying in bed. suitcases. I go from bed to bed as I heal so people start to get dressed or pack suitcases.

Suddenly I’m aware of a staff group approaching me. They demand to know what I am doing. I smile gently and say I’m healing the troubled mind. They are very angry and some are trying to stop people leaving the ward. Two attendants grab my arms and a worried man in a suit cautions that the police have been called.

I am arrested on charges of criminal trespass. The Duty Solicitor — whose thyroid gland is emitting a vague orange glow — informs me that the charges against me are more serious than first perceived. But in the cells I am not idle. I sort out the Desk Sergeant’s impotence and I get three alcoholics to abhor the demon drink forever. Truly I am filled with the light of the Lord.