True Dream

By Cliff Lake

 

True Dream

 

I had the dream about The Machine again.

The Machine is both artificial and alive.

The Machine is insatiable and invisible.

The Machine is bloodless and bloody.

The Machine is corrupted and corrosive.

The Machine is everywhere.

The Machine lights the night sky in lurid yellow,

In fire and flash, in neon and in naked violences of artificiality.

The Machine is in your living room screaming:

“PRODUCT! PRODUCT! PRODUCT!”

The Machine pacifies you with this lullaby,

“PRODUCT! PRODUCT! PRODUCT!”

Have you bought?

Will you buy?

The Machine has eaten you.

The Machine has eaten me.

Hear it thump and roar!

It is outside your window.

It is under your bed.

The Machine feeds you,

Most of us get just enough to wake up tomorrow,

To stoke The Machine again.

To buy PRODUCT.

To be PRODUCT.

 

I had the dream about The Machine again.

The one where it ate me.

The one where it ate you.

The one where I am The Machine.

The one where you are The Machine.

The one where all of us are The Machine.

 

Somebody turn the fucking thing off already…

 

Cliff Lake 11/17/2022

Copyright © Clifford Lake 2022

Location: Dalton, MA, USA

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