Ryleh often has technicolor dreams--occasionally with Dolby Surround Sound(tm) thrown in for good measure. This is not all unusual for him, nor are all these dreams necessarily unpleasant. In fact, on more than one occasion, they have provided him with inspiration for his poetry (reading the posts on alt.horror.cthulhu while muching down on a Pepperoni Supreme pizza washed down with Killian's Red Ale doesn't hurt his creative faculties, either!).
Several of the following poems have figured prominently in Call of Cthulhu (CoC) role-playing scenarios which Ryleh has run for his friends. Feel free to use them in your own CoC games, if you like, but please ask permission first! As mentioned elsewhere, Ryleh's pretty laid back about the whole copyright thing--but he still wants to know who's using them. That's just the way he is...
So it goes!
They come:
When the Earth is dark
And Night comes, comes the unseen,
Earthly light; the Light
From Earth to Sky, ascending--
Turning, twisting, writhing,
Bending--a misty Beacon
In the Night, a Balefire guiding,
By its light--Hastur's
Children, unclean things--come to
Us on batlike wings
Across the vast and singing Voids
Of forbidden Space.
As in Ages past, They come--
From their World dark and still to
A World darker still--
To prance and bellow, spawn and
Die beneath a gibbous
Moon. And what Man starts--with wondering
Fear--to see some vast,
Black, blasphemous Shape flit across
The Moon and hear the slow, distant
Solemn sound of leather
Wings, beat, beat, beating on the
Air...
...while Fomalhaut is rising!
Far older than these Ozarks Hills in which I dwell
Older yea, than those Eldritch Things
Which burrow and crawl and slither beneath them.
I know That which shuns the light of day
And Those who dwell in our deepest, darkest hollows
I know why the whippoorwills call
And to Whom the frogs sing their praises
I know exactly what It is that shambles in darkness
Through the hollows and voids and spaces of the Earth
For I have heard Them howling from our highest places.
They have whispered to me from the darkness
They have called to me from the night
They have summoned me to their balefires
When the Moon was full and bright
And I've answered the call of Cthulhu
And summoned the Greater Unknowns
I have entreated the hills with fire and blood
And called Them forth from the stones
Now I walk among you so softly
In the guise of a mortal man
Knowing you ALL are a feast for the Gods
When They shall come again...!
Rotward hearteaten are the maggotwich,
Flyblowted on rosebeds lying their--
Rosestench unseals no loverlips once cold:
Not wailsong tears nor passionpray rebeat stillheart
Nor make soulight rise in glazedeathed i's....
No, for charnel knowledge consult the worm:
In dark whisperness murmurs he
Of rites arcane and dholeful chants
Under a gibbous moon--but the key is
Red--red, red heartflowering veinbloom to call
The skywise frankenpower down.
Then see Unlife blush pallid cheek, flutter i's
And draw red, red redlips from pearly whiteeth....
Quickly now: kiss the Dead!
Alas, poor Dexter: too trusting he!
Too late found he the wormwise never lied--
Only That which relives may not be
That which once had died!
Dedicated to the memory of Wilbur Whateley: a word to the wise should suffice...!
Beware O Woman, the Wizard's smile!
For those who dance with unclean Sprites
and walk the Pathways of the Night
are passing strange and wild
but stranger yet and stranger still
is their Mage-spawned Childe!
This page revised 28 August 2007