Those Before Poem by Thomas Ware

In vast caves,
Sometimes others lie.
Man is the least of earth's ravagers.

The gaunts,
Faceless servants of archaic Nodens.
On rubbery wings they fly,
With razor horns and claws.

The shoggoths,
Plastic blobs of organs,
Forming shape at will,
Serving only hunger.

The immense,
Waiting, locked away,
Greater than life,
Seething with eternal rage.

The ancients,
They destroyed cities,
Now with power waned,
They wait for their King.

The creepers,
With uncountable legs,
Feelers, claws, and eyes,
Long and fat as forever.

The crawlers,
Arachnoid shadows,
Feeding on the weak,
Shelled nightmares.

The dead,
Vast legions of the arisen,
With strength surpassed by none,
They tear with ravening power.

The returned,
They cloud the eye and revolt sense,
Sewn from flesh and ether,
Monstrosities of magic.

The unseen,
Eldritch horrors beyond comprehension,
Unbound by dimensions,
Space as a mere shadow and time as a mirage.

And THEM,
Anachronistic devourers of sanity,
Senseless, cunning beasts,
They pervert life and death and the in-between.

Who would face these nightmares?
Who would dream them?