On Beyond Cthulhu!

From there to here,

Frome here to there,

Weird things

Are everywhere.

Said young researcher Randolph Carter,
Talking of an old God surrounded by water,
Assuring me he wasn't completely bats,
Started his lesson off with: "The R is for Rats.
The L is for Leng.  The Y is for Yith.
And the next letter is E for Eldritch.
The H is for Hastur.  If found earlier,
One would see that they spell out R'lyeh."

"R'lyeh is where Elder God Cthulhu rests,
Which as far as I know, is all for the best.
To free him would require the masses teeming
'In his house at R'lyeh, Dead Cthulhu waits dreaming'.
As long as he naps, we're kept well assured
That his delayed presence is no threat to the world.
With nothing else that could make our minds unfurled."

Then he nearly fell down flat on the dirt
After I scribbled down a single word
That upon first sight, made his head hurt!
And I said, "You can stop if you want, with Cthulhu.
Most people normally stop at Cthulhu,
And I'm warning that so should you!
The things I've seen, and the places I've goed,
Go far beyond the realm of Cthulhu mythos.
I'm telling you this as one of your friends,
My knowledge starts where your discoveries end!"

Let's go further,
Like Abdul Alhazred,
An Arabian Scholar who went off on his meds.
The very next step where our journey begins
Is in the pages of Nec for the Necronomicon.
A blasphemous tome filled with monstrous creatures
Dangerous summoning rituals and outrageous features.
Everything he saw was caught for posterity
And this book was banned for its notoriety,
Which increased bootleg copies, which only goes to show,
That people actively seek out what Man should not know.

There are some Elder Gods you'd better not invoke their wrath
Starting with Shub, which stands for Shub-Niggurath
Whose feats and exploits are touted in song,
The Black Goat of the Woods with a Thousand Young.
While most cults operate involving specificities,
The one devoted to her exists in abject mystery.
Her birthrate and devotion is not just for show,
And if you want to know more, the world may never know.

Next up is Nyarl which stands for Nyarlathotep,
The best and the worst man you've never met.
His gender is androgynous, his motives ambiguous,
His intellect a genius, his intentions nefarious.
Has hundreds of thousands of aliases and forms,
And invents objects that work beyond ordinary norms.
Was once a Pharaoh in times of Amenhotep,
And just like cats, never lets us forget.

There aren't many that are cut from the same cloth,
And they broke the mold with Yog for Yog-Sothoth.
A mass of writhing circles made luminous,
Through space and time, is omniscient and ubiquitous.
Knows everything that happened, and everything that will,
Making the future somewhat less of a thrill.
Has an impressive and weirdly intimate nepotism
For both knowing and being the gate's guardian.
The reason Yog-Sothoth can be quoted chapter and verse
Is that it is somehow locked outside our universe.

Among the creatures that can help you lose your broth,
Is the letter Shog, which stands for Shoggoth.
Hulking shapeless monstrosities of uneven design
That were built to withstand the end of all time.
Servants to ancient creatures older than our galaxy,
Responsible for crafting non-Euclidean geometry.
Were once stunning creatures capable of making you faint,
But they rebelled too far, and now remain dormant.

When the Earth was still young long ago,
The world had Mi which starts for Mi-Go.
Large crustacean flies with bat wings,
Tendrils, tentacles, among other things,
They warp your mind in more ways than one
By transferring your thoughts between aeons.
Your brain is pickled alive in a jar,
Then put on a mystic voyage beyond the stars.

Of all the Letters capable of making your mouth froth,
Is the letter Az, and Az is for Azathoth.
An immensely powerful being of immeasurable size
Spanning a distance two galaxies wide.
Is the father of Nyarlathotep, among other things
But unlike his son, is blind and cannot think.
Is held at bay by a dozen musicians
To distract and drown out his infantile babbling
Because if there's anything worse than a selfless God,
It's an irreplaceable ruler that's an absolute clod.

When you go beyond Cthulhu...
Going past the quay,
You find competition entering the fray
Who existed for centuries, despite being found yesterday.
One of these which is only a decade old,
Is the letter Zal, which stands for Zalgo.
Going against it is difficult to be proactive,
Because its very corruptive presence is radioactive.
Its name alone can warp the fabric of reality,
Breaking physics, and increasing enmity and apathy,
And a rise of nonsensical-sounding cities.
The reason that people alone are immune,
Is that Zalgo only influences comics and cartoons.
Over the brains and through your eyes,
Look out world, Zalgo comes by!

The places I took him!
I went farther,
Showing young naive innocent Randolph Carter
That the mythos he knew was just a starter.
That there were deities capable of reshaping long-held conceptions
And uncomfortable truths that would cast new perceptions.
I took him beyond the pages of my guidebook,
And I like to think I did him some good...

Because at the end, he said,
"Ia!  Dagan!
Ph'nglui mglw'nafh Wgah'nagl,
Cthulhu
Braggin!"

His mind now broken, he spins verses of purple hues.
He should've stopped at Cthulhu.
Will YOU?!