Joe Machine

i

We walk beyond a hedge of rain

To a man seated on a brocade mantle

And among the gold there is a woven apple,

Red at each corner.

I notice at first his face is blurred,

So that he can see all, but none may see him.

Nimue brings me to stand at his feet

Clearly a man here who moves between Annwfn and this world,

Easy in this condition too

Nimue says ‘This is Arthur of much fame who is in need of you.’

‘Why?’ I ask.

‘Because he is a king,’ she replies.

‘And I am bearing watch over all his life,’ she says,

‘So go you with him Merlin and be the Awenyddion of counsel to Arthur.

For I cannot set foot beyond the water.’

ii

When Nimue bids farewell to Arthur Isee by their parting eyes there much between them.

As I follow him beyond the border of rain

And as the mist slowly clears from Arthur’s features I see his skin is like washed chalk.

We are now in green rolling hills and we stand on a terrace above a broken field.

Arthur tells me that a palace once stood here, tenanted by his ancestors

With lands down to the Aremori that faces Gaul.

But grey-eyed hungry men tore it all down and now there are only stones

That the peasants plough up

And so they call the field Dragon’s Foot.

Arthur asks ‘Will you help me Merlin?

I am a man ever on the march. Yet I need one such as you with me

Who brings with him the secrets of Annwfn.’