Page 450

By Jack Joseph Smith

Here A'sholder said it is hard to find out who you are Never a conscript, never to war Seconds ago,, still I remember Judgeing not myself as a shoulder Silent as a dog that has had it When you cross the line don't think that you only have to know how to be walking Not distancing from the way I was as a child is where the idea of war brought me The thing I know You see the other rifle Before you see your own We know that there is no such thing each as having power because it timesit comes you have to give it away or it won't COME AGAIN

Original Scan

AI Interpretation

GPT

This page links childhood, war, rifles, and power to a hard lesson that whatever power appears must eventually be given away or it will not come again.

The anti-war current is strong here. By placing conscription, memory, power, and the handwritten 'COME AGAIN' in the same frame, the poem suggests that authority is unstable and morally suspect unless it can be relinquished.

Claude

'Here' reworks the 'sholder'/soldier material of page 448 into argument: 'A'sholder said it is hard to find out who you are / Never a conscript, never to war'. Childhood is named as the root of violence - 'Not distancing from the way I was / as a child is where the idea of war brought me' - and combat is reframed as priority of attention: 'You see the other rifle / Before you see your own'. Its hard-won thesis, capped by the handwritten 'COME / AGAIN', is that power is illusory unless relinquished - 'you have to give it away or it won't' return.