"A Visit From Old Shrivelsack"

'Twas the night before Eschaton, and the sun had burnt out,
The throats of the sinners were all torn from the drought;
On doorsteps the cow hearts were buzzing with flies,
In hopes that Old Shrivel Sack would pass them on by;
The children were gagged and all tied to their beds;
While Lovecraftian fever-dreams danced in their heads;
From the way the world softened I began to suspect,
That the opium had finally taken effect,
When out in the street there arose such a din,
That I crawled up from the drug induced hole I was in.
With a head full of fog and a dread beyond words,
I crept to the bulwarks and peered through the boards.
The fires that burned in the skeletal cars,
Gave barely more light than the most baleful stars,
But by squinting my eyes I could barely make out,
That something was out there and writhing about,
The trail that it left was sticky with plaque,
I knew in a moment it was Old Shrivel Sack.
To face things in the darkness he contorted his spine,
And he gurgled, and rasped, in an inhuman whine:
"Now, Flesh-hook! now, Plague-dog! now Fetus and Wheezer!
On, Skin-Sleeve ! on, Rupture! on, Doomnaught and Peter!
Continue your carnage ahead, down the line!
But stay out of my way, because this one is mine!"
As the skin of the kill will give way before claws,
The things in the darkness left without pause;
And my nostrils filled up with a hideous funk,
Up to my hiding spot, Old Shrivel Sack slunk;
On the roof, escorting the smell of fouled eggs,
The clicking and clacking of segmented legs.
With a sound that caused my houseplants to whither,
Down the chimney Old Shrivel Sack came with a slither.
He was decked out in furs, a nightmarish colossus,
His face was a fleshless blood soaked proboscis;
His ovipositor bulged and swelled as he moved,
The talons he had left my floor deeply grooved.
His eyes were like pits into hell, 0h how scary!
His visage was awful, but his fur coat was cherry!
He opened his mouth and his breath was like acid,
But the drugs I was on kept my expression quite placid;
The stump of an arm that he held in his claw,
He popped into his mouth and then crunched in his maw;
He unfurled all his tentacles from his chitinous shell,
And while doing this all, he stayed balanced quite well.
One look into his eye sockets, roiling with bugs,
And I plunged into madness, in spite of the drugs;
But he excreted a pheromone to stop me from running,
It anchored my feet and melted my cunning;
He spoke not a word, no ifs ands or butts,
Just scythed open my belly and slurped out my guts,
And I slid to the floor where I sprawled in my bile,
And giving a nod, with that same baffling style;
He savored the blood on his lips like a cider,
Disappeared up my flue like a drain and a spider;
But I heard him exclaim, as I rushed t’ward my end—
“Tomorrow is Doomsday. You’re the lucky one, friend.”