And with strange aeons, even death may die."
H.P. Lovecraft
"A mountain walked or stumbled."
H.P. Lovecraft
Cthulhu
I awaken tossed in bracing foam,
It's subtle fingers turn my stomach's walls.
I cling to what remains of my lost home,
It's cradling bed and soft and silent halls.
On driftwood should my tale suddenly end,
Soaked and drowning, lone upon this sea,
When distant is my liberation sent,
The shape of some dark island calling me.
Hours pass but fill me with my hope,
The shore's salvation ever closing now,
The hand of madness falls loose about my throat,
For God's embrace now guides my vessel's prow.
Though not a faithful man I must confess,
No other explanation touched my mind,
The island closed despite the winds caress
That blew my sail away from where it lies.
Yet, filled with joy my mind was soon to fill
With memories of recurring dreams amiss.
I recalled a mountain that once spilled
From an ocean body that was much like this,
But not a mountain, nor a thing of flesh,
Or any flesh my thought could understand,
A writhing face of feelers, forming fresh
It's body bulbous, tentacled and grand.
At last, I knew the horror stalking me,
The waves crashed by, the sea conveyed my boat,
As fast as nature could protectively,
But the vast, unnatural form swiftly approached
And reared from amongst the crashing waves
On leathered wings that brought it from beyond
The veil that hides a universe that raves
In broken sanity long lost and gone.
It's name, it filled my head and I awoke,
My bed, my room, my prison in this world,
With scattered pillows and sheets so freshly soaked
With seawater in which I'd roughly turned.
Such new knowledge scars my waking days,
It's portent words in my ears are screaming
That in his ancient house at R'lyeh,
Vast and dead Cthulhu still waits dreaming.
Asylum
It stares like a mirrored eye
In the blackness to spite the starless sky.
This moon. This empty night moon.
It's light a cold and interesting boon.
Such gift he graciously gave
With no expectation due,
Tendrils reaching from His grave,
Covered in this evening's dew.
Barred windows cast silhouettes.
My madness strong enough to bend them yet
His voice bids me stay a while,
Honeyed words through a broad and lipless smile.
"Wait. The stars will soon be right,
I will break your spirit free,
To hunt in the empty night,
A black and loyal hound for me."
The scent, Arkham's blood will boil,
His hands will pull me through it's rusted soil,
Help me cross it's russet pools
To find my prey, a hive of mortal fools,
Ignorant of His great will,
The glory waiting to be found
Beneath the shadowy hill
Where he slumbers in cool ground.
In the blackness to spite the starless sky.
This moon. This empty night moon.
It's light a cold and interesting boon.
Such gift he graciously gave
With no expectation due,
Tendrils reaching from His grave,
Covered in this evening's dew.
Barred windows cast silhouettes.
My madness strong enough to bend them yet
His voice bids me stay a while,
Honeyed words through a broad and lipless smile.
"Wait. The stars will soon be right,
I will break your spirit free,
To hunt in the empty night,
A black and loyal hound for me."
The scent, Arkham's blood will boil,
His hands will pull me through it's rusted soil,
Help me cross it's russet pools
To find my prey, a hive of mortal fools,
Ignorant of His great will,
The glory waiting to be found
Beneath the shadowy hill
Where he slumbers in cool ground.
Black Goat
What blooded fingers trace these idle patterns in my mind,
Forging memories of a most bleak, unusual kind.
I remember that which I have not, could not have seen,
A black and goat faced man who stumbled as he ran from me.
I wander, sleepless through the night to the empty south,
Warm puffs of misty air issue from my chattering mouth,
To the woods, the open darkness that lies inbetween,
An other place I now recalled from a distant dream.
There it seemed all perfect. Idyllic in it's way,
The creaking bark in strongest winds not heard in brightest day.
It touched upon a sinful thought that lingered in my head,
To leave my dying wife alone. Leave her to the dead.
It's right that I fell as I did, down in to a hole.
My face found dirt and water to mark my sullied soul.
I clambered from the ditch, roughly scraping at the mud
And on my hands and knees I lingered long before I stood.
A print pressed in the mire catches my drifting eye,
Making real my suspect fallacy, a truth from my mind's lie.
A hoof mark, large and heavy, goat-like and immersed
Deep in to the sludge that passed out here for the earth.
Could this be my quarry, the beast-man from my thoughts
I should not tarry here further, lest I should be caught.
My feet found stronger footing, I turned from where it faced
And witless, stumbled back in to the hole with wobbling grace.
My ankle broken, here I lay with all the ants,
Just as petty, just as tiny, just as meaningless.
Drowsy, laying in my ditch, I can dimly hear,
The thud of heavy hooves approaching, thumping at my fear.
The sound of evil in my bones, I'm consigned to my fate,
My body his to do with as he chooses with his hate.
I know him better from the walk. I recognise his art;
He is abandon. He is cruel. He is my own heart.
I smell his breath, I hear his mind nagging like an itch,
His horned visage peers at me. He covers me in pitch.
My wife will long outlive me now, feeling solemn, spurned
And I'll lie here in these woods forever, lonely, loveless, burned.
Forging memories of a most bleak, unusual kind.
I remember that which I have not, could not have seen,
A black and goat faced man who stumbled as he ran from me.
I wander, sleepless through the night to the empty south,
Warm puffs of misty air issue from my chattering mouth,
To the woods, the open darkness that lies inbetween,
An other place I now recalled from a distant dream.
There it seemed all perfect. Idyllic in it's way,
The creaking bark in strongest winds not heard in brightest day.
It touched upon a sinful thought that lingered in my head,
To leave my dying wife alone. Leave her to the dead.
It's right that I fell as I did, down in to a hole.
My face found dirt and water to mark my sullied soul.
I clambered from the ditch, roughly scraping at the mud
And on my hands and knees I lingered long before I stood.
A print pressed in the mire catches my drifting eye,
Making real my suspect fallacy, a truth from my mind's lie.
A hoof mark, large and heavy, goat-like and immersed
Deep in to the sludge that passed out here for the earth.
Could this be my quarry, the beast-man from my thoughts
I should not tarry here further, lest I should be caught.
My feet found stronger footing, I turned from where it faced
And witless, stumbled back in to the hole with wobbling grace.
My ankle broken, here I lay with all the ants,
Just as petty, just as tiny, just as meaningless.
Drowsy, laying in my ditch, I can dimly hear,
The thud of heavy hooves approaching, thumping at my fear.
The sound of evil in my bones, I'm consigned to my fate,
My body his to do with as he chooses with his hate.
I know him better from the walk. I recognise his art;
He is abandon. He is cruel. He is my own heart.
I smell his breath, I hear his mind nagging like an itch,
His horned visage peers at me. He covers me in pitch.
My wife will long outlive me now, feeling solemn, spurned
And I'll lie here in these woods forever, lonely, loveless, burned.
The King in Yellow
Drawn in by the rumours
The meek and wealthy hundreds,
The great and good file in the drafty hall,
Newly decorated
In thickest, yellow curtains
Arranged to cover every inch of wall.
Word of mouth had called them,
Each tender soul had listened
And come to fill the coffers with their gold.
They'd come to hear a story
Of a throne, of sons, of daughters
And a king who was both terrible and old.
The seats did creak beneath them
Before silence overwhelming
Drowned out the sound of crowdedness and strain,
That the room was now submerged in
As the folk await our pageant,
Wishing our truth to come like heavy rain.
The lights all fall, the veil draws,
With baited breath they listen,
The emptiness now has them all enthralled
And then, a wrathlike figure walking,
A pallid mask upon him
And his body wrapped within a yellow shawl.
The Shine Troupe
They called themselves Shine,
Their dance sublime.
Each yellow sash twirled
Through hazy air
Pushing radiance,
Forcefully,
Into our reeling minds.
Each face was masked,
Featureless,
Mirrored and fine,
Reflecting us,
The watchers,
A stunned audience
Witnessing our own demise.
The movement of one man,
Clad in finest robes,
Wrapped in dirty bandages,
Jerked skillfully,
Unnaturally,
Inhumanly.
Turning from us
As he passed each mime,
He removed his own mask
So we could not see.
In turn, they fell,
Like perfect dominoes
Before a storm,
Clutching their open skulls.
The last harlequin fell.
The lord stood alone,
Smiling somehow
Through that pallid bone;
Smiling at us.
Bright fear blinding,
Yet none could turn
As his hand raised
And smoothly removed
The wall between him and us;
Between his truth and us.
The yellow mark burned,
Our retinas misshapen,
We fell as one in dust.
Such Days
Such worlds,
They spin through me,
Carving loops in my thoughts.
Such sins forgotten; such dark days
As those that I wished had long passed me by;
Such days...
But no,
My regrets live,
Sculpted with butcher knives
On pyramids of reddest clay
Pulled from deeper sands than man has known in
Such days...
I should,
And so I do
Remember her dim eyes,
Loving, fading in the white room
She had, in those latest hours, called her home;
Such days...
All filled
With tarnished words
Stained by her long illness,
By my known, secret betrayal,
And the knowledge that I was there to watch
Her die.
Such worlds,
They spin onwards;
Such lovely parallels,
Sweet temptations of better times
Where you lived and I was more than a worm,
Than slime.
I reach,
Rough skin, rough bone,
Rubs on my softer palms.
I decide that the price is fine.
Such days are gone, and such a lonely life
Is mine.
They spin through me,
Carving loops in my thoughts.
Such sins forgotten; such dark days
As those that I wished had long passed me by;
Such days...
But no,
My regrets live,
Sculpted with butcher knives
On pyramids of reddest clay
Pulled from deeper sands than man has known in
Such days...
I should,
And so I do
Remember her dim eyes,
Loving, fading in the white room
She had, in those latest hours, called her home;
Such days...
All filled
With tarnished words
Stained by her long illness,
By my known, secret betrayal,
And the knowledge that I was there to watch
Her die.
Such worlds,
They spin onwards;
Such lovely parallels,
Sweet temptations of better times
Where you lived and I was more than a worm,
Than slime.
I reach,
Rough skin, rough bone,
Rubs on my softer palms.
I decide that the price is fine.
Such days are gone, and such a lonely life
Is mine.
The Mist, the Haze
It gathers itself on a misted mountaintop.
The quiver. The shiver and the shake of the limbs.
It has no knowable name. It looks just the same.
Beckoning, drawn in by artful, curled fingertips.
Chasm yawns. To fall endlessly and be reborn.
To dive to either side in to the freezing tide
Would be the better choice than the rain of echoes
That lead on. Will and freedom failed and done as one.
Sweet gracefulness to tread the footsteps of the dead.
The whites of it's eyes visible out in the fog.
Distant light. The lighthouse turns even in bleakest night.
Voice remembered still. The cruel truth, the hardest kill.
Gone, evaporated like a buried, loved pet
Soon replaced. Only the air and black sea on the face
And the whisper of new day. Turn and walk away.
The quiver. The shiver and the shake of the limbs.
It has no knowable name. It looks just the same.
Beckoning, drawn in by artful, curled fingertips.
Chasm yawns. To fall endlessly and be reborn.
To dive to either side in to the freezing tide
Would be the better choice than the rain of echoes
That lead on. Will and freedom failed and done as one.
Sweet gracefulness to tread the footsteps of the dead.
The whites of it's eyes visible out in the fog.
Distant light. The lighthouse turns even in bleakest night.
Voice remembered still. The cruel truth, the hardest kill.
Gone, evaporated like a buried, loved pet
Soon replaced. Only the air and black sea on the face
And the whisper of new day. Turn and walk away.
