Newer Poems by Angus Macfadyen, November 2021
1
soon now the night must end
soon the door must close
and soon the lights extinguished
what then must come
what dreams must seize this soul
and drag us weeping below
for the devil is one breath away
staring into our abyss
as all day long the assault endured
upon these battlements
wherein all our frightened thoughts abide
for always the trojan devil was inside
and there the doubt sown, there the seed
grown to the size of a man
now on the run even from himself
sleeps a slaughtered beast
colored yellow, the coward
or green with envy for those heroes
he read about in the history books
their steeds he knew not how to ride
thus red he seeps, as blood from his cheeks
runs dry, and pale the empire sounds
its echo faint now calling
white proud boys
to the appalling purple haze
of power pissing on their parade
2
to all the masks that came before
to all the smiles, the shakes
to all the final breaks
to the indifference
I might have shown
to the cold fish
I might have been
and to you I wish
the pale understanding
just like the way we meant to be
that night
when the shoes you wear
walked too in mine
and the song of despair
called our name
and the beauty of that cry
danced us together
our lips clung in this prayer
holding us forever
in a fever without a cure
some folie a deux
some far flung stone
launched by this hand of god
we must spin upon
in dark comedy
since laughter
and the wind
here and gone
is all we ever belong to
3
before we knew the grief and shame
before we knew history
before our reading glasses
scratched by incessant learning
before our memory began and education too
before when we rose anew each
of us into the sun and screamed for milk
back then, do you remember?
and who were you then?
before you too were run down by the clock
of efficient cruelty
do you remember
who you were then?
or has the incessant clock
of cruelty tickety tocked its march
stamping across your terrain
crushing your brain
cementing a path to
assumed inevitablity?
are you still with me?
are you now as you were then?
before we knew all the shame
of everything we became?
4
to those young enough
who bury me today
remember this
know the devil is true
and wise, and the lies
you will believe
are the world you
were flung into
thus
the fight you endure
or flee
is for your soul
and yours alone
lonely though you be
cast aside by society
a mere pebble
insignificantly tossed
by the hand of god
into the damn
insurrection
know we all fight
and many surrender
and thats alright too
since most aren’t built
for this incessant assault
on our senses
most can’t ride the fall
or
abide even the call
most cannot listen
or hear a goddamn thing
most
curse the ringing in their ears
tormented now
most
young enough to bury me today
know the devil is true
and rings in all our ears
so fling some dirt upon me
or burn me and be done
I’m no longer here
so I don’t care
you’re the only ones
the lonely ones
left with your memories
of what might have been
but if you care to heed my call
then know the lies
flung into this world
only you can believe
can decide
and only you can choose
and all those voices
in your lonely little brain
are each a song sung
a note now dust
for what was then
dies before what rises
here our lives
come and gone
in a poem
or a song
