Courage Consists In Remaining

By Jack Joseph Smith

The line is as Nancy iss "Courage consists in remaining inside oneself, next to nature, which holds -no account of our disasters." By Jean-Luc Godard; from his ilm "Pierrot LeFous* * I quake when-I feel you breathing Leave me, ,leave me I quake when I hear you speaking Leave me, .leave me You rustle all the wind out of my heart When you wish me-to be gons- You makes a river-flow in teers-instead' of ideas When from you,.you: wish-me to be gone for myself I wert to your window sill Instead of the hopeful sheen of any -sumer.star- The -night-laid me blinded ‘against: black marble- Naked, ,I could ‘not hold my fist any higher-than;’ my eyes: While you; Pallenon your ‘little-bargaim basement. bed- in an immense-dreary’ shyness with nozhere=to go - but. power- held my-world so stil: that the warm breeze: suggested‘ only-e planet I might: very well ‘fall fram: For a moment,.<' I hated myself? for hating. you for. letting: our -presence-be seperately-alone-im one rocm But no :-Pates,no déstany;,no wish could ever: turn: = any possibility: imme = toward ‘the action.of your lonely bidding: My words were-ore place; my heart another: My--guts -had isunker}.my mind filled: with the unreal fog: that has-no feeling for what-a perso is: What I again-had to find was -time~ But yow:had none either~ With a mother-closely dying- by your side-omtonorrow's muraing shift And thus no-longer-could we-borrow from one another- _ What must be done-said to-create> So I lay down-beside-you for the futures like a frozen child waiting to be tested And blessed“you-for having no anger in your love: when the feeling in my blood had begun to rum. sinceree

Original Scan

AI Interpretation

GPT

A long poem of intimate crisis framed by a Godard quotation, in which the speaker lies beside a lover whose mother is dying, navigating rejection, helplessness, and the slow return of sincere feeling against the backdrop of a shared room and a borrowed future.

The poem sustains its tension between cinematic philosophy and domestic pain, making courage a matter of staying present when everything in the relationship has gone still.

Claude

A love poem built against a Godard epigraph from 'Pierrot LeFous' - 'Courage consists in remaining inside oneself, next to nature, which holds no account of our disasters' - and addressed to a Nancy figure in a failing closeness. The refrain 'Leave me, leave me' alternates with the speaker's own undoing: 'I quake when I feel you breathing,' 'You rustle all the wind out of my heart,' 'You makes a river flow in teers instead of ideas.' At her 'little bargaim basement bed' he lies down 'for the futures / like a frozen child waiting to be tested,' and, with 'a mother closely dying / by your side om tonorrow's muraing shift,' blesses her 'for having no anger in your love.'

The poem takes the cinematic maxim about staying inside oneself and tests it against a night where remaining is not stoicism but raw exposure. Every philosophical noun the speaker reaches for - 'no Pates, no destany, no wish' - is immediately re-grounded in the body: 'My guts had isunker, my mind filled with the unreal fog,' a fist that 'could not hold higher than my eyes.' Nature's indifference from the epigraph is mirrored in the lover's affectless 'shyness with nozhere to go but power,' and the dying mother offstage means neither party 'could borrow from one another / What must be done.' The closing benediction is surrender dressed as grace - love continuing 'since' the blood 'had begun to rum sincere.' OCR damage and run-in spacing are heavy throughout; I preserve source spellings and read the most degraded lines provisionally, but the night's emotional arc holds.