Page 283

By Jack Joseph Smith

Also Ran Me old and falling down Her the finest of brown There I am drunk and young both being bull shit' All along the watch tower and around the bar room rail Each black eye that I saw lose had been good to my ease-of one She was so smooth And I would look up to think I was the same Her skin matched mine Except for so much youth No wind in the cavern Still as dust Reaching for a negro song Rejecting Rap

Original Scan

AI Interpretation

GPT

'Also Ran' stages age, youth, race, barroom sightlines, dust, watchtowers, black eyes, and desire through a drunken comparison between the speaker and a young brown-skinned woman.

It is a difficult page, and the scan-corrected version keeps that difficulty visible. The poem exposes the speaker's gaze while the marginal handwriting makes the page feel unsettled and still under revision.

Claude

''''Also Rarr' -- the old speaker and the 'finest of brown' young woman at the bar. Black eyes 'good to my ese-of-one,' watchtower and barroom rail shared. A draft with visible marginalia scratched into the right margin.'''