Hold That Nasty Language

By Jack Joseph Smith

I don't tell lies Ask my football coach; he still lives Ask my ex wives Didn't hide the deadly touch Ya' go after work and war,. no lie Ya' get caught in one; the're on a run And someone will think The're better than you I wouldn't take that chance Mind your own business, Rusty says that Stay off my ranch, not my first rodeo Liars find fruit full of foulness Lies are the beleagurement of the brain Stick to the facts Judge You know you need to be qualified. to be a head hunter

Original Scan

AI Interpretation

GPT

A voice poem about blunt truth, rough codes of conduct, and the way everyday speech reveals character and threat.

This poem is performative in the best sense: it sounds like it knows it is being spoken aloud.

Claude

The speaker's truth-telling credentials are established through witnesses — football coach, ex-wives — who are still alive to contradict him if he lies. The poem's bluntness is not bravado but a code of conduct in which speech is accountable to the people who heard it first.

By invoking the football coach and the ex-wives in the same breath, the poem collapses athletic discipline and marital failure into a single credential: the speaker has been tested in both arenas and survived both with his honesty intact.