Acid

By Jack Joseph Smith

‘ ENGLAND'S BEE GEE'S Just for Pour Immired seasons we all lived’ in Vain" ACID I Sitting on the grass Greens petelie green. The leaf-iscdeep my Lordi . : ‘Ard ‘a childs?! challenge still fears =the tips of trees: Pallimore in.circle from the cliffs: The airrsinztters with its-fine breath Coming upward ‘its:scent clings to:ons and I watch breezea blow me. infantile Seeking-a higher sight Insights toward living Struggling to-reduce-poner to Letting go As in-our revelations-at the Pirst-turns - Loving the faces of friends: Mystery turning their ashes: Saintly begimings “rising to form: Waiting for all to unconceal “tine ldstening to demege unraveling truth Parting is such sweet sorrow to, tell Away out wildness: of winged flutter: Wird moves from one place to anotherr Head bert unfer-a strange ivory cast : Phe silk of ageless dances surging up years.of the mind ; A Inman's twirl without body's composite over this soul. Ole As to a-mask is life uvom:the tight:stretchess of carves Commencing to show slightness im-open’ laid Pingers a@ i Real.as experience: , ° 2 Byes and forgiving . Are the complete hands:of a woman Lining owrrworld: ooo
ACID II Laughter in that hearty way Peaks to becomming strained’ When remembering the babble and mumble Kissing giant mouths of worn kmeed men Tell the witty man not to bow again For he runs this heart to far ahead He processes our imaginations imitation Christ And forever has gone too dark for a second act To hungry world in tangle . Here too I wait with sigh : CRE aS Flourishing madness do thee need? : soe Where is the acknowledged wonder? The only circle -believable on shields left for battles z Felt the lone determined sun star flickering absolutes. re! And now with warrior love we strike out trusting . ae Yet on mythclogical power of wounded flying feet During the fear void before period people ‘pondered revolt Memory’ was ‘vanquished dust Ice gathered in the brains. . Yet a planet crystallized a few prestha beneath a residue- Some did not want to pilgrimage back to the land of re~entrance * And experience the same unlmowns for the second time Which is what must be done in order to correct error. So they accepted the disbelief and contimed outside of concept Growth as belief in deliverance With heat pressuring this heart And gain is the renunciation of perceptions Ae that external heat pressures those minds . ek ooo
qo AcID III With ego as an echo Seen are the devils: With which the balance in eternity comes to life No single shadow without the light of duel angle Invisible walls do prevail’ Smell head hate peers down Preventing the interchange~ Inaction to Action Action to Inaction. The light house tower of war Killing of a human = That gives no light . Controls the sword Is useless to climb Until both do fall: Off stranded waters Hand then neck beyond reality-¢ Any confiscation of life before birth Must total the formula of the planned Yet awakened then walked with a sound Yea again appears the gift of visions Through the womb to living Not as the matter of facts 4% as a matter of courses New willful sperms have arrived alive God bless this fire As we learn it upon coming Into wanting it for deaths We induce judgement Yet; watch the free on their mountain top thoughts leaving highs Though focused we do knowingly See the decendents of the deadly q But for THE FOREVER the nature of mankind goes on Toward the passover of no turf turned graves at all’

Original Scan

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AI Interpretation

GPT

A three-part psychedelic sequence moving from pastoral revelation through strained laughter and memory to a final confrontation with ego, duality, and death, treating the acid experience as a compressed spiritual journey from innocence through dissolution to hard-won vision.

Each section darkens the one before: Acid I opens with green grass and cliffs in a mood of childlike wonder; Acid II introduces hunger, madness, and mythological struggle; Acid III arrives at devils, invisible walls, and the recognition that even free will delivers one toward judgment.

Claude

The triptych structure is a controlled descent — from grass and breath and 'the faces of friends' in Part I, through the 'imitation Christ' and vanquished memory of Part II, to the stark theology of Part III where 'ego as an echo' meets 'the devils' and birth itself must be planned. The Bee Gees epigraph — 'Just for four hundred seasons we all lived in Vain' — is not irony but prophecy: the acid reveals that vanity and vision are the same substance viewed from different altitudes.

What makes the poem more than a period piece is its refusal to land on ecstasy. Each section corrects the one before, and by Part III the speaker has arrived at a place where 'God bless this fire' and 'We induce judgement' coexist in the same breath. The acid does not liberate — it accelerates the confrontation with mortality that sobriety was deferring.