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Mad God's Masque and Bellicose Ball

Author: 
Ted Peterson
Librarian Comment: 

This section contains various poems posted by Ted Peterson in his Sheogorath persona. The title "Mad God's Masque and Bellicose Ball" is taken from the longest thread of them, though other threads are also represented.

Welcome to the Mad God's Masque and Bellicose Ball. I am Hlireni Indavel. I am an incredibly famous witch because of our dance in Ald Daedroth with those of gold-hats, hee hee... Here I am honored to bring you the mad poems of our Lord, the Mad God Sheogorath. The Imperial librarians are nice enough to let me give an introductory speech for the works of our Lord. It is strange enough that our Lord is also known outside of Nirn as Ted Peterson or Tedders. He is widely known as one of the conspirators of the trouble in Iliac Bay. Well, that is far from us here in Ald Daedroth. I don't know much about this trouble, but I heard it was messy, hee hee... Ah anyway, enjoy the poems and the gibberish words here, hee hee...

-Hlireni Indavel


Drow, drow, drow your canoe
The stream provides flotation
Hysterically, hysterically, hysterically, hysterically
Existence is hallucination


2nd of Sun's Dawn

Aye, I can often be beckoned
Popping from my golden sphere,
During Sun's Dawn, day the second,
My favorite day of all the year
As time on Nirn is chiefly reckoned.
Still, my daily schedule is always clear.


Sheogorath: A Case Study

I agree
To think to study me
Is the mark of a mind delirious
Beyond the pale
And quite doomed to fail
Ye who tries to take me serious
In your world,
Sick minds have unfurled
Psychiatrist’s careers do embark
But in the real
Empire of Tamriel
Madness grows strong in the dark.


Queen Alessia

Alessia, O Alessiiiiaaaa
O Slave Queen in the White Gold Spire
My question will beeee aaaa
Quick one as on your throne you expire.
Was it, o, diarrheeeeaaaa
You birthed instead of the First Empire?
Alessia, O Alessiiiiiaaaaa?
O Slave Queen in the White Gold Spire?


Would You Mate?

The darkling and the dabbling duck
In salacious mind he’s stuck
On the mortal questions
Of hot coital sessions
Wondering whether spirits ... mate ...


Tit for Tat with Hermaeus Mora

This poem was posted by Hermaeus Mora:

Sheogorath's a merry drink
Both matured and refined
A colour rich and deep as ink
And flavour that blows your mind.

Sheogorath's response:

And Hermaeus Mora is a filthy stew
Rotten glyphs and moldering scrolls
Burbling layers of green, red, and blue,
One cup is enough to fill two bowls


Ode to Azura

Oh, Azura, Azura, the dust and the dawn,
My guts fill with worms, my body their pawn,
Oh, death cometh to stop my immortal dance,
Alas, alackaday, and, aye, what an annoyance
But weep for me not, we soon will laugh and laugh hearty
Don’t dawdle, in the stone wood to the Ear-Clipper’s party


Sanguine's Realm

Mind aflame, loin afire, illicit pleasure to seek
From under the bed, Lord Sanguine doth peek
To inspire perversions in the wild and meek
Tales of taboos of which virgins blush to speak
The wild rose blooms, perfumes in the burbling creek
The petals, the stem, and the thorns’ painful preek


Having No Lips Must Suck

Lips can be equipt if you'll pardon my quips to be ships, can be flips, can be drips, can be cracked whips, can be teasy strips, can be firm hips ... oh, dear, better keep from getting naughty ... can be salty chips, can be cheese dips ... oh, now I'm hungry ...


Let's Put a God on Trial

Ot tup eht eslaf dog no lairt
Si nosaer, dna ton nosaert
Tub rof slatrom ot egduj eht enivid
Neve fi no reH ym noinipo sedivid
Si eht yrev tsehgieh fo ssendam
Hcihw I nac ekamnu sa ti si edam.


It’s a funhouse, a madhouse, a palace of magical sin
But beware you leave nothing behind
For if you go back through the way you came in
The Dam Dog will swallow your mind.


Oh, Oblivion is full of games to make you scream and chortle,
Like, Guess the Disaster’s Path, or Pin The Madness on the Mortal.
And there’s always poetry involved, for it is the Princes’ duty
To take the ugly in your world and give it our own beauty
The marble jaws of Oblivion forever opening and shutting
Like poetry, you let Mundus run, and then do a lot of cutting.
A plague here, pestilence there, it’s so difficult choosing,
But when we’re not doing that, we trying to be amusing.


Mehrunes Dagon

There once was a Prince named Mehrunes
Whose buttocks sounded sonorous tunes
‘Twas an odiferous song
People sang before long
They had enough of his full crescent moons.


Hermaeus Mora

There once was a Prince named Hermaeus,
Whose voice was a thundering bray, thus
People harkened to his call
Til they discovered that all
He was, was just withershin chaos.


I evah enod esoht semyhr ni eht tsap
Uoy loof, lla lluf fo everv dna echanap
Tub sa a dlihc erofeb a denmad tsaredeap
Ym dnim gnihguols htiw noitirted
I t’nahs od erom rof ym niotatsetsed
Snalp ylno ruoy s’dlrow niotcurtsed


That's Not Prose

"A tib fo esorp" uoy reffo eht noitalupop
Tub daetsni tahw ouy evig ot su si yrteop
Gnivorp ecno niaga eht noinu ecrovid
Neewteb ruo serehps, ton os ralimissid
Eht elat uoy llet si gnisuma, tub on elims
Si no ym spil ni ym tnerruc doom ot etims
Ni ym nettor doom, D’i ekat eht dnim
Fo sudnum dna htiw a efink D’i ecnim . . .


Sheogorath The Banker

it’s nice to think you’d easily recognize
a raving lunatic with your myopic eyes
his hair is all askew, possessions in bags,
he’s draped in chains or festooned in rags
peering in too clearly is a dangerous task
you don’t know what is behind the mask

the smiling man on the street moving in your direction
might be wanting your teeth for his molar collection
you trust your spare key to the sweet lady next door
never suspecting a thing ‘til your blood’s on the floor
the fine merchant, those cute kids, that pair of newlyweds,
you’d be filled with pure horror if you looked in their heads

so, some say i choose this form to put you at ease
with middle class formalities, thank you and please,
others say it’s symbolic, though my bank has no walls
and there’s no penalty for early mental withdrawals


On Writing Poetry

the meter’s quite appalling
like bad fruit from out of season
the witless wit rather galling
and i’ve got no rhyme or reason

don’t think i’m being modest
per the bad verbs and noun declension
i’m proud as a pillow bout my oddest
poems of extradimensional demention

more insane than all those psijics
read my words and feel the curse
boil the brains of all my critics
who say i’ve gone from bad to verse


Sewing With Hearsay

When sewing a garment using thread coarse
To create a gown of some beautiful art
You might find that without a primary source
One tug on the thread, and it all falls apart.


Sithis

Thither thin Sithis did slither the plinth
So she supped and she sipped on thick absinthe
Thus sated she waited, her sick thoughts with pith
Lisping sibilant hisses does this Sithis writhe

"Amusing sport," insolent Sithis doth say,
"This hundredth pastime in ether’s sweet sway.
The assassin’s soul, his carcass is a myth that I miss
Sailing insane into the teeth of the ceaseless abyss."

Whither Sithis withered, this they seldom say,
A rancid kiss of passing sin, sagging death doth sway,
On a starry isthmus soaked by thick salinic slime,
Whisper thelemic solipsisms on supple flesh sublime


Part I

You left out an O, my jobbernowled brother
The name's Sheogorath, Sheograth is another
A herder who lives with his family and his flock
In an adorable little cottage in north High Rock
His wife is fair and portly, still girlish for her age,
His older son lives elsewhere, an actor on the stage,
They get loving letters from him every single week
Which proud Sheograth reads though his literacy's weak.
A middle daughter and infant son complete the brood.
She is sweet and shy, with a talent for cooking food,
And though the tot is too young to have much personality
He's the cutest, mildest child in the High Rock principality.
They're happy if not rich in their modest little hovel,
'Til Sheograth, mad, bludgeons them all with a shovel.

Part II

Don't worry, young gascleramp, I don't care about the spelling,
'Twas an excuse to tell a bloody tale that's worth bloody telling
Many hiss my name in incoherent gibberings and squeaks,
Or wild-eyed tongueless faces who voicelessly speaks
Plenty screech my name in terror or croak it like a frog
I'll even come politely when people call for the daM doG.


And the greatest trick I ever pulled since light came to my brain
Was holding Mundus in my jaw and slowly biting down


It has absolutely nothing to do with feeling like it or not. It is not what I say but what you hear. The entirety of Mundus is staring at a handkerchief and calling it a hacksaw.

As the poet Ithijjithi wrote before the Marukh tied rocks to his feet so he sunk from the clouds into the waves:
Yclept the world is only light
nO darkness, no, in man's eyesight
laUghter joyless echoes perforce
ariA of terror that there is no source
natuRal law is neither word
aversE to flight is the airborne bird
amnesiAtic dreams of a disunioned marriage
hyperboLic words but they disparage
phenomenA you call what seems rare
membershiP revoked of fire and air
lively deaD rotting in the dirt, grin
claw skin tO rip, pull back the curtain
idiot knowinG is no way to be certain
OF REALITY.


First thing in the morning, M. Bal likes to slay
A random principality, that's how he starts his day.
Then he does his stretches, and if he's feeling wrath,
He'll make someone's guts explode, then he has his bath.
For breakfast, he has tea and jam, listening for the news
Of the temple that collapsed, people kneeling in the pews.
After lightning strikes in Elsweyr and floods in Daggerfall,
An inferno in Solitude, why, then, does Molag Bal
Take a break before smashing more with a deafening crunch?
No, he's a busy Daedroth, so he takes a working lunch.
All afternoon and evening, it's kill and kill and kill
And kill and kill and kill and kill and kill and kill and kill, until
He finds the day's last victim, it's always good to view
The last one to annihilate today, and today that one is you.


i Myself hAve Never visiTEd aetherius, nor have any of you, but Legend has it that it’s a LANd where logiC and Reason reign Under a Xiphoid sky.


O'er the treetops, the worm takes flight,
'Tis no dragon, it is Peryite.
Like a shadow over country and city,
Comes the harbinger, Peryite.
Pestilence blooms with each wing beat.
For whom doth seek Peryite?


Azura:
Who would bet with me not expecting a cheat?
To play the game fairly is the worst kind of deceit.
You wish to dance 'til the floor burns with white heat.
Your last waltz with Vivec, he stepped on your feet.


Oh, yes, the path is very crowded,
But it is smooth and the skies unclouded,
Those who think it's steep and twisted
Which you can't move on unassisted
Don't know you walk it without any strain
Much easier than the rocks of the sane.
Oh, yes, your fellow walkers may be odd
As you stroll on the lunatic promenade.
They stare and dribble and screech shrill
Some move faster yet while standing still
So, join the march, move fast, no slowing,
No promises where this boulevard's going
Run free cross the bridge that span the gaps
(And, oh, steer clear of all the tourist traps.)


Ah, the hot topic is soul possessing
The subject I'm always sharp addressing
What is it like, you're no doubt guessing
A wound that festers, clot abscessing
The force on your head now harder pressing
A spice-laden breeze the wind caressing
In your body, a darker soul oppressing,
Til yourself, your own self acquiescing
Then ceases to fight, it's not distressing.
When I'm gone, this is what I'm stressing,
You'll find yourself always obsessing
How sweet is Sheogorath's blessing


Shiogorath is a word a lambling might bleat
While choking on a particularly thorny thistle
His blood raw throat, breath dry like a whistle.
But a ruse by any name would smell as sweet.


Impossibility, probability, likelihood, and odds
When one is considering the killing of gods
As the recipe says, firstly, when making a pie
Create a new world, the old one must die
When fourteen have come, then comes the Insider
To stoke the hearth's flame, and thou, deicider,
Can slaughter us all, cut our throats like mere swine,
And drink deep of the blood of that which was divine.


Retem dna emyhr eht fo esuaceb yrteop od tonnac dam eht
Tub eht dam era dnuob yb selur llits, siht yeht reven llet
Nylnial fo sgnisselb eht etarbelec yam yrnezitic lacipyt
Dna eht yad nehw s'nerdlihc doolb saw cinoteb edit
Htarogoehs dlo fo modsiw eht raeh ohw uoy fo esoht tub
Wonk taht yltcaxe neewt' meht si nehw eht dlrow si tliub.


You can sometimes tell I'm coming
Swiftly and surely as black death
Other times you are succumbing
With no time to catch your breath

While I have you in my chill grip
It's a spasmodic, frenzied event
Sometimes I grab and let you slip
And sometimes I like long torment

My brutality always overwhelms
Though every guard has caught me,
I move freely through the realms
Dust to dust, I humble the haughty.


Amidst the mists and coldest frosts
With barest wrists and stoutest boasts
He thrusts his fists against the posts
And still insists he sees the ghosts.


When sewing a garment using thread coarse
To create a gown of some beautiful art
You might find that without a primary source
One tug on the thread, and it all falls apart.


To nerdy authorship from Madness's Summit,
I've fallen shivering, down and down I plummet,
Dropping lower and lower each night and day,
Merely look to the Hunt and nest of corvus corvidae
And you'll hear the last of the Dam Dog's moans
As the abyss becomes one of thorns and bones
From God to scribe to naught but a fading breeze
To the house of the scrolls someone else has the keyes.