Poems by Angus Macfadyen, last updated August 2022
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
5
A SOLDIER DYING SOMEWHERE
the devil came for me
and I believed someone
was trying to steal my land
my rights
the money I had earned
but the devil wanted none of that
just my soul
taken piece by piece
as slow in time I grew bitter
what was once inherent sweet
turned sour as my insides
splattered below this tree
of knowledge which gave
my dreams fruition
only to rot away unplucked
upon foreign fields
by an indifferent evil
sauntering by
there at his crossroad
and me repugnant in misery
“what ho, friend? why the sad demeanor?”
So I told him my plight and he smiled.
“I’ll pay for your dreams to come true”
And he picked me up, and gobbled me down
spitting out the seeds of my destiny
immortal realization mine
as his saliva suckled me into the dirt below
to sleep a while
perchance to dream, aye there’s the rub
for when I spring up, into the sun
what shape shall I take?
A thorn, a thistle?
A weed, or weeping willow?
to comfort you in my shade
or perhaps a cactus flower
to drench your thirst with my blade
6
death’s tongue, shining
steel triggered
sang early for me
this fatal dawn
her wings fluttering
near, she came
on talons of untold
fright and nowhere
was there to hide.
Led to my unmarked grave
I began to chat with the messenger
of dark mascara’d doom
about how the shadows
and light on the wall of this cave
are but crude scratchings
compared to the cinema
of modern alienation
but she paid no heed
heels echoing like pools
of rippled silence
and as I sank
beneath the puzzle
of everything to come
my little existence
in all its banal wisdom
suddenly made sense
then I disappeared
inside my own reflection
forever
7
its just the thing
we forget to do
sometimes
breathe
and when we do
our life goes on
sometimes
breathe
when all’s undone
and devils crow
sometimes
breathe
since kings and fools
and queens do too
always
breathe
and only thoughts
that bring us low
try to
end
this breath we are
all one inside
so do
breathe
and sleep this fateful
day away
while you
breathe
when nonsense rules
when rhythms change
then only
breathe
still on your own
to heaven
or hell
you’ll breathe
8
Joplin was always screaming
like she wanted the spirit
to enter her
and make her feel the way
everyone else felt about her
but all she did
was go back to that
small hick town
desperate for their approval
and when she was denied
in the dust of hickville
with the prairie wolves
howling her demise
the respect she so desired
from those who adored her least
the witch she was
weird sister like
she too howled
of what running with wolves
was actually like
and spoke of human suffering
in screeches that
offended those little minded
dinosaurs, sipping that beer
so gone she is
yet her spirit never lied
nor the sacrifice she made
to hypocrisy
9
i am a black hole
nothing escapes me
I will swallow you whole and spit
you out the other side
where I also begin
and you as such
have ended according to
your narrow vision of reality
for i am your learning curve
i bend light as it seeks
me out beyond far corners
of this mind expanding universe
we all must to dirt
in death apart
i am alone the One
intensely i repel
all your shallow yearnings
drawn too close
by your fascination of me
for I am the mystery, the alpha
and the omega you seek
yet wish you might not find
i lie here
in the coffin with you
and all your ancestors
and we shall rise up
hand in hand
walking dead upon the
cemetery grass
we will like liquid dreams
spill out of the contained
nothingness
shattering your crystal myths
and fragile lies
our hermit kingdom
of silent autistry
shall be revealed to all
the frightened minds
at last
shall tremble before us
their dichotomy of deceit
now in ruins at our feet
we are snake shedding skin
worms with wings
fluttering from cocooned sin
we are the wind we howl
and the lion roars
we sour when pinned
upon the wall of that close doored
intellectual dishonesty
which can find no meaning
in our existence at all
