By Jack Joseph Smith
Original Scan
AI Interpretation
'What The Hell' moves from a cross and refused train robbery to Geronimo, Apache territory, a totem pole, and the question of being or phoniness.
The title gives permission for roughness, but the page is more skeptical than merely swaggering. It is drawn to frontier legend while also testing whether that legend is a shell around something real.
Titled 'What The Hell,' a swaggering yet skeptical origin tale strung on the title phrase. It opens by making suffering the source of art - 'If I did not have a cross I would not have a tale to tell' - then drops a refused crime, 'I was even asked to rob a train and I said no,' and 'The old way,,what the hell.' Frontier legend rises up: 'There I saw Geronimo at ten years old / Apache territory and a totem pole,' named as 'the beginning / of what the hell.' The close turns the bravado inward to doubt - 'possibly there is a being / Or something phony, / rapped in a shell' (source spelling 'rapped') - testing whether the legend wraps something real or hollow.