“Best Nightmare Machine,” by Matthew Olzmann

Poetry faculty member Matthew Olzmann was recently featured in The Adroit Journal. Read an excerpt of “Best Nightmare Machine,” and find a link to an additional poem, below:

Best Nightmare Machine

Whenever I got too many peaceful nights of sleep,
whenever the vise grip of anxiety failed to apply
the proper pressure to my skull,
I could type Image of a brown recluse spider bite
or How much of Antarctica has already melted?
into the search engine, and that network
of teeth would take care of the rest.

Whenever the season was too bright,
whenever my table too bountiful,
I could count on my trusty nightmare machine
to produce a door in the sky or earth, and release
one hairless wolf, starving and strange,
to hunt me down, tear off one of my arms,
and whisper something like, Your leader
is a stable genius, and immediately, my nerves
would light up with catastrophe and sulfur.

It doesn’t work like that anymore.
Technology has evolved.
The sophistication of my dread has evolved.

Today, the best nightmare machines understand
the fundamental necessity of delight,
the importance of good fortune.
They now try to make you to cherish, at least a little,
the world, before introducing its demise.

Read the rest of this poem, as well as an additional poem, at The Adroit Journal.