By Jack Joseph Smith
Original Scan
AI Interpretation
Art and imprisonment are linked directly here: one brushstroke is enough to trigger the fear of being locked away, making creation feel inseparable from consequence and refusal.
The page is severe in a useful way. It treats expression as dangerous knowledge rather than personal release.
'Consequence' makes a single brushstroke feel like a sentence in both senses. 'When I pick up a brush / and make a strok / I am locked up' fuses creation with imprisonment, and the doubled plea - 'How many times / do I have to telll you / Howmany times to / tell myself' - turns the warning inward as much as outward. The stakes are absolute: 'I have to quit / or I go away for life'. It ends in flat refusal of contact - 'no matter of the phone calls, / I am not here for you / any more' - treating art as dangerous knowledge that severs ties. Source spellings ('strok', 'telll', 'Howmany') are preserved.