Gecko Temple / The King of the Reptiles, lizard divine, / A small scut'ling mass of its claws and its scales, / It climbs up the wall of its altar sublime / While the floors are knee-deep in its broken-off tails. / It joins all its kin while the brazier below / Sputters forth its great pillars of scented perfume, / The room starts to fill with the masses who show / Here to worship amongst all the smokey grey plumes. / The lizards pay little, if any at all, / Attention towards their sweet rapturous crowd; / Though the people glance upwards with gazes enthralled / No thought of disturbing their gods is allowed. / Lusious tapestries, jewels are consumed in the fire, / All items of value sacrificed thus. / That their essences, altered, might rise even higher / To service their masters, and leave only dust. / The geckoes, with passionate disinterest, / Find the pursuit of flies to be more to their taste. / They see up in flames go the most and the best / And so swiftly take note, with reptilian haste. / Soon all of the goods have since perished in flame / And the satisfied hordes exeunt thus the great cave. / This ritual here has established the game / played 'twixt cold-blooded masters and humanoid slaves. / The lizards set forth in the summer's hot night / To engage in a wild orgiastic bash. / In the coals, nature's left here to do as it might, / And they lay all their eggs in the valuable ash. / Miniature reptiles rise in mere days / To embark in the chase for their hunger's relief. / They chow down on pests by the dawn's early rays, / but then vanish unseen into chambers beneath. / Insatiable hatchlings spring forth from the ground / and proceed to devour all invertebrates. / Their sphere of consumption is ranged all around / and gives farmers fair reason to all celebrate. / The crops are developed, the harvest is near, / and all thanks to lizards with big appetites. / They'll do the same ritual year after year / in the small Gecko Temple they've found to work right.
-- ansi by ts, lit by cthulu.  click here for the original ansi released in TeklordZ February 1996 --