I HAD TROUBLE GETTING TO UNKNOWN KADATH - part 2

He tried to dissuade me, he offered me cake,

He offered me chips and choice fillets of hake,

He offered me scones and pronounced them just so,

But I sat in his temple and just wouldn't go.

So he told me the fable of Banzi the Wise,

Who offended the gods and fell into the skies,

And only for wanting the merest of glances,

At that lesser, known peak where the gods held tea dances.

For the weak gods of earth, they are petty and spoilt,

And so far up themselves that their icons get soiled,

But dreamer beware of the Dark Other Gods,

That they call when they want to be absolute sods.

"So what then," he asked, "would the punishment be,

if an infinite fall came for peeping at tea,

For those who intruded on Unknown Kadath,

which amounted to crying 'go on show your wrath!' "

His council was cogent. his council was good,

He lived up to the name that he had in the wood,

but still I sat there in his temple, in slippers,

sipping his tea, and devouring his kippers.

At last he grew angry and puffed himself up,

He took back his kippers and took back his cup,

And he said, "On your head be the end that you've got,

I did not advise it, oh no I did not."

And he went on to speak while I stood there and gaped,

of the selfie the gods left which the censor escaped,

Carved on the rear face of the peak of Ngranek,

And he wished me good day and that I'd break my neck.

But I must have looked stupid, or vague, or surprised,

For he slowly explained what I should have surmised,

That the face in the rock had unearthly oddities,

I could use to look out for demigods and goddities.

For in lands round Kadath, if genetics ran true,

I would find the offsping of maidens the gods knew,

And spotting the features they shared with the face,

I would know I was getting quite close to the place.

So I rode on a yak down to old Dyath-Leen,

Where the traders all come and the sailors are keen,

Where the wharfs are filled up with the bravest seafarers,

And you can get a free tea from its free tea, tea sharers.

But oh - what I found there - what fear and dismay,

For instead of the tea ships from distant Carthay,

Black galleons whose oarsmen had no kind of uses,

For Dyath-Leen's many bars, its restaurants or massueses.

Had come into the harbour, and traded for gold,

And for slaves - with the rubies so large and so old,

That were offered by men whose turbans sat askew,

On their heads as if hiding what nobody knew.

Oh the troubles I had on the way to Kadath,

At the city of Leen on the River Dyath,

Oh the sinister secrets implied by the feat,

Of the oarsmen who never bought viands to eat.