Those Who Bind

That ancient cavern, which none can find, save those so blessed-cursed.
Shroud of unnatural vines, a chthonian masque, veiled gaping maw,
hungry earth.
Listen to the wind, that chanting, silent zephyr,
muttering unknowable, unforgotten tongues.
Obscene secrets, speak to the soul,vague susurrations,
to make the mind sob.

Walk in bright-darkness, throat of the world,black fleshed land,
stinking of loam.
Loam and desecration, corruption and mud,blood of a billion dead,
soaked in unwashably.
The draft a fetid breath, of the all consuming beast,fluttering flame,
the only ward for madness.
The all consuming fear, that one is not alone,
adrift in the sea of thought.

Stalactites and their kin, alabaster balustrade, herding one,
into the earth’s throat.
Down carven stairs, not made of man, but broad and deep,
if uneven and rutted.
Striations in strata, a weird relief, showing not what fell,
but what has lain.
Those misbegotten spawn, deep ones swim, slumbering Dagon,
whose blood still runs.

Winding unnatural stair, through moss covered grotto,
streaming cilia of the black earth, pointing ever down.
Past abnormal formations, guised in pallid bryophytes,
seeking to undermine the tentative grasp.
Scuttling somethings, almost glimpsed, retreating from the aura,
the radiance of man.
That almost warm, nearly reassuring, flame that tells,
master of his domain.

But what before, man’s rising, claimed mastery of all,
god-king and emperor.
Those star-spawned intellects, seeking ever outward, ever downward,
shunning that found wholesome.
No light to see, blind grasping crawlers seeking the warmth,
not of light.
Knowing the unknowable, searching for that, the mind-light of man,
the soul-light of him.
Oozing betwixt wall and ceiling, seeking to reach, those protected,
by the warmth of light.

Antediluvian nightmares, get of Shub-Niggutath, formless forms,
Black-Goat-With-A-Thousand-Young.
Hidden from sight, they seep along, squirming crossways,
seeking the dark.
They will not enter the light, enter not the dark,
eyeless skulls and fleshless bones, give testament.
Dimness grows and waiting is, dawdle not this granite grove,
some unknown troglodyte graven, stone topiary, abhorrent and profane.

Madness grows from their presence,
hurry, hurry, there are years to go and miles to walk,
'fore this burden be laid down.
The path alone illuminated, the coronal warmth diminished
through the eons, 'cross the incalculable distance.
The marching horde, come from beyond the bound of time,
outside the realm of space, waiting are they once again.

Why-ever did they flee, leaving man and his kin alone,
face unexplained the unknowable, things and more than things.
That which blinds the mind, consumes the reason,
butchers soul and slakes thirst with blood.

Down, down, down, the congested earth consumes, the flame is gone,
replaced by eldritch light from nowhere.
Run like the deer, like the gazelle, like the poor, hairless ape,
seeking that which cannot be known, but is for those who bind.
Gnash the teeth, beat the breast, the mind unravels,
disturbing gallery undisturbed since time out of mind.

Impossible angles of shadowed arch, consume more than light and sound,
troughs for gutters, alter on the dais.
Entombed upon the block, rough-hewn and alien,
the last paladin of that other race, made before man.
Swollen skull thrown back, knowing, maddened grin,
gnawed bones unrestrained, held only by force of will.