I HAD TROUBLE GETTING TO UNKNOWN KADATH - part 1

I HAD TROUBLE GETTING TO UNKNOWN KADATH

I dreamed thrice of a city, but when I got close

My lamp-stand would slip and crash down on my nose,

My sheets they would tangle, my quilt slipped a lot

I never got near it, oh no I did not.

In my dreams it was sunset, and the city shone,

In the light of the rosy sun sinking and gone,

But as I approached there was such a palava,

As I dreamed I was wrapped in a wool balaclava.

This headgear it itched, and to get to the brunt,

It cut off my vision – ‘twas turned back to front -.

And waking I found that it was but my cat,

Who in jest had mistake my face for her mat.

So I prayed to the gods who look kindly on dream,

Such as Cheese-rind the Mighty, and also Sour Cream,

Cocktails-for-Nightcaps, and Lobster-on-Toast,

But those mighty powers failed, my dream gave up the ghost.

So then I resolved I would go to Kadath

It’s a fearful long journey – you just do the math,

Kadath where the gods live, to beseech them at home,

To let me enter my City and n’er again roam.

But where was Kadath?  Now I asked it seemed true,

We had all forgotten, though before that we knew,

It wasn’t in Booklyn, it wasn’t in Yonkers,

It wasn’t in the Atlas, it just drove me bonkers.

I descended the steps to the cavern of flame,

Where Nasht and Kaman-Thah so awful in fame,

Proceded to dun me for funds to repair,

The terrible wear on the sixty ninth stair.

They called me ill-fated, they called me unwise,

They shook their forefingers and narrowed their eyes,

“Young man go no further, this is no safe path,

The eyes of a mortal may not see Kadath”.

I pooh-poohed their doubts, though I shook both their hands,

And delivered their mail from the dull waking lands,

For they get Readers Digest to liven the hours,

When sleep-drenched young maidens are not bringing flowers.

And leaving them there I went into the wood,

Where the trees were enchanted for evil or good,

Their bark it was gnarled, being knotted and rugose,

I spoke to a Zoog – standing there in his Zoog clothes.

“Oh tell me friend Zoog, for the help that before

I gave to your kin, at the Gugs’ vast stone door,

Which way should I go in the search for Kadath?

And the Zoog said “Oh man, you’re just havin’ a laff”.

“We Zoogs do not know of the High and Holy,

We can just spell our names if we spell them out slowly,

But if you go to Ulthar – then Atal the Priest,

It is said knows the gods, from the fast to the feast.”

From the fast to the feast? From the bottom to top!

I vowed if he knew them that well, I would stop,

And pester and question, and ask, and implore,

‘til he’d say what he knew,  to get me out the door.