Page 341
By Jack Joseph Smith
By Jack Joseph Smith
Original Scan
AI Interpretation
Speaking of the Devil joins a handwritten meditation on not wanting to be 'Not Concious' with stars, deep-sea rocks, river beads, falling, Europe, the Middle East, and the North Star.
The page treats consciousness and geography as unstable measures. The handwritten opening frames the typed body as a question about whether mattering can survive depth and distance.
'Speaking of the Devil' opens with a handwritten subtitle voicing a wish against oblivion -- 'He says I don't / want to be / Not Concious' -- then drops into a typed meditation on sameness and depth. The stars hold little 'differance'; 'rocks made form / beneath the deep blue sea' are 'all the same for hand picking / along a thousand river beads.' Falling is unjudged: 'No judgement in how far you fall,' down 'against the fathoms, that do dare / you to matter at all.' It ends with proud indifference and a measuring act: 'I never cared about Europe ... / I went and hung a long line / with the North Star.' Source spellings ('Concious,' 'alot,' 'differance,' 'form') are kept; this remains a mixed-legibility page.