The Collected Short Fiction by Thomas Ligotti Part 38

Good-Tom-Go-Lightly by Michael Shea.

In vault or tunnel, catacomb or tomb.

In cellar, bas.e.m.e.nt, attic, shuttered room.

They lurk, lurch, limp, snake, scuttle, shamble, slither,

On vast membraneous wings swoop hence, or hither;

They snarl, gasp, croak, hiss, cackle, groan or quaver;

Leak slime, putrescence, venom, gore or slaver;

Stretch feelers, talons, tentacles or paws

To seize and stuff us in their reeking maws!

All scribblers who the Snake-Haired Muse invoke,

So be their styles post-modern or baroque,

Have summoned up with profit-ours and theirs-

These well-known monsters with their baleful stares,

And oft and oft we of their tribe have joyed

To see these veteran legionnaires deployed

These, Dame Horror's host of d.a.m.ned Things

(Long sung by sonorous P-es and gaseous K-gs)

Still, Dame Medusa freezes up the heart

As well by subtler and more various art.

Tis true that demons fronted face to face

Do pluck us to a vaster Time and s.p.a.ce,

By their mere being make th' Abyss sublime-

Still, more intricately awe-ful s.p.a.ce and Time

Are wrought by indirection, melody,

A calm unravelling of reality...

Good Tom-Go-Lightly, tunefullest of fellows!

It's not his style to wave his arms and bellow,

Nor grunt, nor rant-he loves the English tongue!

Lute-limpid lines across his page are strung,

Whence eyes pluck that which woos the inner ear

Through inward mazes, to new realms of fear.

Not that ghastly, snouted Things are lacking,

Nor mindless screams from those they are attacking-

Nor human food a-squirm with larvel bulges

Whose rupture the Unspeakable divulges...