Page 117

By Jack Joseph Smith

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 Small 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 But 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 high: Though focused we do knowingly See the decendents of the deadly But for THE FOREVER the nature of mankind goes on Toward the passover of no turf turned graves at all

Original Scan

AI Interpretation

GPT

The poem turns spiritual conflict, war, birth, and judgment into one unstable cycle where human will keeps recreating both violence and vision.

"ACID III" moves by sharp oppositions: ego becomes an echo, devils appear alongside light, and action flips into inaction. The war imagery is especially severe, with the "light house tower of war" offering no guidance and the sword ending in bodily destruction, while the poem also presses backward toward birth, the womb, and "new willful sperms" as if life itself enters already burdened by conflict and judgment. Its logic is jagged and visionary, but the through-line is clear: mankind remains caught between destructive inheritance and some enduring force called "THE FOREVER."

Claude

'ACID III' opens 'With ego as an echo / Seen are the devils', sets two typed columns against each other ('Inaction to Action' beside 'Action to Inaction', a useless 'light house tower of war' beside 'Killing of a human' and 'Controls the sword'), then moves through birth, 'New willful sperms', 'God bless this fire', and the free leaving 'high:' before ending 'Toward the passover of no turf turned graves at all'.

The side-by-side columns make the poem's balance of opposites visible on the page, light and shadow, action and inaction, war and killing. The later stanzas turn toward birth and inheritance, and the separated last line imagines a passing-over in which no graves need be dug, a hopeful close to the acid sequence.