{"id":39479,"date":"2017-08-05T22:33:10","date_gmt":"2017-08-06T02:33:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/thepoetrymarathon.com\/blog\/?p=39479"},"modified":"2017-08-06T08:05:49","modified_gmt":"2017-08-06T12:05:49","slug":"thirteen-ways-of-looking-at-a-shoggoth-poem-13","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/thepoetrymarathon.com\/blog\/2017\/08\/thirteen-ways-of-looking-at-a-shoggoth-poem-13\/","title":{"rendered":"Thirteen Ways of Looking at a Shoggoth (poem 13)"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>I<br \/>\nDon&#8217;t.<\/p>\n<p>II<br \/>\nBut, of course, you must.<br \/>\nAs we all must.<br \/>\nThe Great Eye waits for each<br \/>\nIn turn to meet its gaze.<\/p>\n<p>III<br \/>\nThe shoggoth whirled in the cosmic winds.<br \/>\nIt was all.<\/p>\n<p>IV<br \/>\nA man and a woman<br \/>\nAre none.<br \/>\nA man and a woman and a shoggoth<br \/>\nAre infinite.<\/p>\n<p>V<br \/>\nI do not know what to prefer,<br \/>\nThe beauty of chaos<br \/>\nOr the beauty of the Elder Things,<br \/>\nThe tentacle suckling<br \/>\nOr just after.<\/p>\n<p>VI<br \/>\nThe shadow crosses the stars,<br \/>\nAn indecipherable curse<br \/>\nIn an ancient tongue: &#8220;Tekeli-li!&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>VII<br \/>\nOh men of Sarnath,<br \/>\nWhy do you covet golden idols?<br \/>\nGreen lights in the mists;<br \/>\nThey come to reclaim what&#8217;s theirs<\/p>\n<p>VIII<br \/>\nDreadful, inescapable rhythms;<br \/>\nI know the shoggoth is involved.<\/p>\n<p>IX<br \/>\nWhen the shoggoth leaves,<br \/>\nIts tentacles inscribe many circles<\/p>\n<p>X<br \/>\nAt the sight of ruins,<br \/>\nImpossible geometries<br \/>\nWrought of ivory unknowably vast,<br \/>\nEven the creatures of Ib<br \/>\nCry out sharply.<\/p>\n<p>XI<br \/>\nHe rode over Celephais<br \/>\nIn a dream.<br \/>\nOnce, a fear pierced him,<br \/>\nIn that he mistook his own shadow<br \/>\nFor a shoggoth.<\/p>\n<p>XII<br \/>\nThe chaos is crawling.<br \/>\nThe shoggoth must be approaching.<\/p>\n<p>XIII<br \/>\nIt was evening for a thousand years.<br \/>\nIt was raining<br \/>\nAnd it was going to rain.<br \/>\nThe shoggoth sat<br \/>\nIn a tangle of limbs.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>I Don&#8217;t. II But, of course, you must. As we all must. The Great Eye waits for each In turn to meet its gaze. III The shoggoth whirled in the cosmic winds. It was all. IV A man and a woman Are none. A man&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1062,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[13],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-39479","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-miscellaneous"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/thepoetrymarathon.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/39479","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/thepoetrymarathon.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/thepoetrymarathon.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thepoetrymarathon.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1062"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thepoetrymarathon.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=39479"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/thepoetrymarathon.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/39479\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":42844,"href":"https:\/\/thepoetrymarathon.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/39479\/revisions\/42844"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/thepoetrymarathon.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=39479"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thepoetrymarathon.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=39479"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thepoetrymarathon.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=39479"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}