{"id":1412,"date":"2008-08-15T23:10:37","date_gmt":"2008-08-16T03:10:37","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.chrismclaren.com\/blog\/?p=1412"},"modified":"2008-08-15T23:10:37","modified_gmt":"2008-08-16T03:10:37","slug":"silence-falls-on-meccas-walls","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.chrismclaren.com\/blog\/2008\/08\/15\/silence-falls-on-meccas-walls\/","title":{"rendered":"Silence Falls On Mecca’s Walls"},"content":{"rendered":"

And now, because I couldn’t turn up a copy of this online todayGoogle so rarely fails me these days, and ironically, once I had looked it up I was able to find a copy with a non-title search.<\/footnote> when I wanted to refer to it during a heated discussion of US foreign policy, and I had to go pull out the book, I present:<\/p>\n

Silence Falls On Mecca’s Walls<\/strong><\/p>\n

Silence falls on Mecca’s walls
\nAnd true believers turn to stone:
\nA granite wind from out the East
\nBears the rattle of bone on bone,
\nAnd to the harlot of the priest
\nComes one no man has ever known.<\/p>\n

The black stars fall on Mecca’s wall,
\nThe red stars gem the pallid night;
\nThe yellow stars are hinged in grey
\nBut Ammon-Hoteph’s stars are white.
\nWho weaves a web to hold at bay
\nThe castled king of Mekmet’s light?<\/p>\n

Darkness falls on Mecca’s walls.
\nThe cressets glimmer in the gloom;
\nAlong the cornices and groins
\nThe scorpion weaves his trail of doom.
\nA woman bares her pulsing loins
\nTo One within a shadowy room.<\/p>\n

The star-dust falls on Mecca’s walls,
\nThe bats’ wings flash in Mekmet’s face;
\nThe lonely fanes rise black and stark.
\nWhat bought what Shape from what strange place,
\nAcross the gulf of outer dark,
\nTo span the void of cosmic space?<\/p>\n

Silence falls on Mecca’s walls
\nLike mist from some fiend-haunted fen.
\nStars, shuttles in a demon’s looms,
\nWeave over Mecca, dooms of men.
\nA woman laughs – and laughs again.<\/p>\n

—Robert E. Howard<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

Compare and contrast with Billy Butts<\/a>. Or, if you have less refined tastes, with the pop culture take<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Oh, and if you’re not down with Amon-Hoteph you can check out some background<\/a> there too.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

And now, because I couldn’t turn up a copy of this online todayGoogle so rarely fails me these days, and ironically, once I had looked it up I was able to find a copy with a non-title search. when I wanted to refer to it during a heated discussion of US foreign policy, and I had to go pull out… Read more →<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":13,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[8],"tags":[193,194],"class_list":["post-1412","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-books","tag-lovecraft","tag-poem","xfolkentry"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p5UQvw-mM","_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.chrismclaren.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1412","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.chrismclaren.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.chrismclaren.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.chrismclaren.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/13"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.chrismclaren.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1412"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"http:\/\/www.chrismclaren.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1412\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1415,"href":"http:\/\/www.chrismclaren.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1412\/revisions\/1415"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.chrismclaren.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1412"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.chrismclaren.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1412"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.chrismclaren.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1412"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}