Cowboy Cthulhu
By Joel Arnold
Deep within the midnight ink of ocean
upon a Cyclopean nest of rock
Cthulhu sits waiting, dreaming
of being –
A cowboy
He squats upon steeds dragged braying from the apocalypse,
and mosies across the ocean currents
with chaps fashioned from the cool hide of squid,
a Stetson coaxed from the leather of whales.
His spurs jingle, jangle, jingle
a pestilent ditty that drove Azerhed mad,
while four barnacle-cloaked rustlers
scour R’lyeh on bony nightmare feet.
He awaits the alignment of sea-tarnished stars,
and on cool autumnal nights warms himself
over the volcanic heat of telegraphed nightmares.
He smokes cigarettes rolled
from the skins of drowned sailors,
strums tunes on a guitar made of
shipwreck timber and strung tentacles,
lusts for the feel of saddle-horn and stirrup,
the taste of burnt beans and tin-pot coffee,
the smell of rusting barbed wire and blood-soaked rawhide.
When he opens his beak-like maw,
whirlpools birth on the distant surface,
barnacles crumble and octopi burst,
and the thin shellac of sanity melts
from those who dare listen.
The brine-infused dead rise from their vast trenches
and dance, as his fearsome yodel erupts;
Yippi ki yi, ki yi, ki yi!
Yippi ki yi, ki yi, ki yi!
Yippi ki yi, ki yi, ki yi!
Fhtagn!
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