Azazel brings me news where the orchid flowers bloom.
Azazel tells me stories when I’m crying in my room.
Azazel plays me hymns with his dozen and two limbs.
Azazel tells me everything might just be better soon.
Shax comes riding swiftly on a king’s ten dollar horse.
Bifrons blesses rivers and turns away their course.
Aamon keeps his puppies trained for days that herald war.
Baal blesses the heavens with his loud bowel shaking roar.
Azazel shows me these things as I wake another day.
Azazel kisses gently when he takes the pain away.
When I doubt Azazel wakes me, when I fall Azazel takes me.
When I rise again Azazel guides me back to find my way.
To be honest, this is a very poetic representation of the Ars Goetic demons from Johann Weyer’s Pseudomonarchia Daemonum, my take and translation into characters of these demons was very artistic and shouldn’t be understood as an academic or historical representation or interpretation of them in the works of people like Johann Weyer. The poem’s title “Daemon” is a reflection of the old Latin/Greek ‘Daimon’ which means ‘god’ or ‘power’ or ‘guide’. English derives its word ‘demon’ from the same place.
Charl Landsberg is a South African transgender and queer poet who writes about everything from social justice to a bit of fantasy and sometimes something a bit strange.