David Thornbrugh

It will be beautiful.
Nothing will be wasted
xxxxxxand no one will go hungry.
If you want to wear ugly shoes
xxxxxxthe machine will make them.
If you like bad music
xxxxxxthe machine will create it.
Bad art will flow out of the machine.
The police will use the machine to make
xxxxxxhandcuffs badges guns doughnuts.
Criminals will use the machine to make
xxxxxxlock picks money liquor more money.
The machine will make more machines
that will make more machines
until we will all be standing on machines
watching the tide come in.
Equality will prevail
and jealousy will die.
Even the sky will be machine made.
It will be beautiful
and finished
and everyone will finally shut up
and be satisfied
with what they have.

Tonight the house is so clean,
I feel like taking LSD.
Cleaning the house was part
of the preparation,
like Jesus was coming on donkey back
and you had to dust the palm fronds.
You knew everything was going to be
fresh and dewy like dawn in Disneyland
and you didn’t want to be caught squandered.
Christmas lights scrunching in the rictus grin,
early onset of blue light deep in the brain,
that characteristic flood of saliva
back of the throat like the Pineapple Express
melting inhibitions and restrictions on the seen and
making every pore a crater, every hair a telephone pole.
A dirty trip was a bad trip,
every grit of grime exaggerated
to the Chinese drip drip of a mind tied
to a prison plank and howling.
Your whole brain squeaked when the chemicals kicked in
and the walls melted in the pizza oven
of full psychic disclosure,
you wanted to be ready for revelations
on the level of your skin turning into stampeding horses.
It was a way of settling the dust,
decanting the wine from the lees,
preventing the bitter taste of physical existence
from choking your chakras, mangling the astral plane.
LSD was the mind’s cleanser,
the drug that made you want to vacuum the rug
and scrub the tub. What a waste:
a spotless house, and no brain left to wash.

What does it mean to be counterproductive
when the house is on fire
the sky really is falling
the fish are fleeing the sea?
What does it mean to go too far
when ice no longer holds its breath
the bears beg amnesty of the bees
the trees are in need of counseling?
What does it mean to say sorry
when the damage is done
the fix is in
the chips are down
the good old days are a souvenir t-shirt?
Water continues to run down hill
children to be born
men to lust after women
women to dream of love
all the gods to be silent.
The birds argue the virtues of singing
while axes gnaw at the trees.
Even knowing we are more ocean than beach
we keep on building on the sand.
The wind argues the virtues of violence
with the clouds as the sky
fades from blue to black behind our backs.
The campfires of those we left behind
when we stepped through the hole in the sky
sparkle over our heads.