The Night of the Black Mass

With the solstice at hand and Christmas nearly upon us, I've been in a festive mood and so, to contribute to everyone's Christmas cheer, I've taken it upon myself to improve upon Clement Moore's classic poem, The Night Before Christmas.

I might just burn for this.  Enjoy!

The Night of the Black Mass

'Twas the night of the Black Mass

and in the far northern land,

the Men of Leng stirred in dread Sarkomand.

The virgins were bound on the altars with care,

in hopes Shub-Niggurath soon would be there.

The cultists were gathered in black hooded robes,

while visions of chaos filled their left frontal lobes.

And I with my dagger held at just the right slant,

began to recite a blasphemous chant.

When out on the lawn there arose such a wailing,

I interrupted the ritual to see what was ailing.

Out of the dungeon I flew like a flash,

and threw open the doors of the crypt with a crash.

The chuckle-dark moon aloft in the night,

bathed the graveyard below in a sickly, wan light.

I was frozen in terror, for before me, I knew,

stood the Black Goat of the Woods and her thousand young, too.

With her black, squirming tentacles so slimy and slick,

I knew in a moment I was going to be sick.

More awful than Deep Ones, her young, so depraved,

and they gibbered, and hooted, as they danced on the graves.

Now dashing! Now dancing! Now capering madly!

They disinterred all the dead and befouled them gladly!

Into the crypt and through every tomb,

fornicating with corpses in the sepulchral gloom.

I looked on, amazed, at their wild bacchanal,

which proceeded, unhindered, through the great hall.

So into the dungeon, the dark young they flew,

with me in their wake, and Shub-Niggurath, too.

And then, with dawning horror, I comprehended the truth,

amid the prancing and pawing of each cloven hoof.

There was nothing to ward us; ceremony incomplete,

so they fell upon cultists and started to eat.

She oozed foetid ichor from out of each pore,

and her fur was all matted with dried blood and gore.

Black, ropy tentacles writhed on her back;

a dark cosmic horror, about to attack.

Her eyes - filled with malice! A visage so scary!

With a bestial rage that would make Dagon wary!

Her gaping, puckered mouths were filled with sharp teeth,

which she embedded into warm flesh, like a sheath.

The bloody appendage that was stuffed in her maw,

was all that remained of old Jack McGraw.

She had a grotesquely distended round belly,

that emitted foul gases that were really quite smelly.

She was an ancient evil who'd crossed cosmic gulfs,

and when she cast her gaze 'pon me, I soiled myself.

She snatched up the high priest and tore off his head,

and at that very moment my sanity fled.

She spoke not a word, but returned to the feast,

and filled her great belly with ten cultists, at least.

And wrapping a tentacle across my slack face,

one parting caress then she quit the damned place.

She gathered her young with a bestial roar,

and they all capered off to be seen, nevermore.

But I heard her intone, ere she departed the land,

"Cthulhu R'leyh wgah'nagi fhtagn!"

Have a Lovecraftian Christmas, and a Cthulhu New Year!