Two by Doug Draim
 
Coming Down From The Mountain Unenlightened

We trudged down the mountain path
to the water 
like warriors beaten.
Our whiskey bottles empty,
all of our mescaline eaten.
Five days without bathing, we threw
ourselves, filthy
and stinking, clothes and all,
into the ocean.
The two girls stripping down to
their panties and bras.

Thomas claimed he saw
a flying saucer.
Lucy swore she had 
a brush with Big Foot
on a rocky ridge above the jade cliffs.
But the rest of us
knew that mescaline
was the cause.
And we mixed our trips
with a few cold beers
to level them out a little.

I lay in a foot of water
staring up at the mountain,
thinking how normal everything appeared.
After five days of
psychedelic musings
and discussions of
astral projection, change shifting and time
travel, nothing in the world
looked any different
We dried ourselves in the sun and
headed down 101 for home, still unenlightened

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Bombing Babylon

Does it matter that the
walls have been
blown away?  A child’s
mangled, red tricycle the
only thing left standing?
How many people witnessed,
averting their eyes? The
toxic gas and burning bodies
climbing up into the sky,
with no regard for life, and
creating deadness in the
hearts of the living.