Pagan Except For Christ

By Jack Joseph Smith

Looking at the cross, just that - Making the sigm of the cross Gaining respect for your small resurrections Then, just with that ‘ Your inner voice will speak the truth About that which already has happened These and those eyes Om the: foot: Of the huge wood Inside the last place you can find im your mind You have bowed your head and knowrr Love is a long line likened to hell in its reach Though it is time after time in the other world Soom and alongside your perception of things; this way of going outside of life works.» and becomes real Then, each thank you Jesus Ts an experience; when you step back from him, as he says it's dome€eso

Original Scan

AI Interpretation

GPT

A devotional poem that approaches Christ through bodily gesture — looking at the cross, making the sign, bowing the head — treating faith as an experiential practice that works outside of doctrine, where love reaches like hell and each 'thank you Jesus' becomes direct experience.

Claude

The title concedes everything — the speaker is pagan in every way except the one that matters, and that exception is not intellectual but physical. Faith here is 'small resurrections,' the sign of the cross made with the hand, the inner voice that speaks only after the body has already committed. The stunning line 'Love is a long line likened to hell / in its reach' refuses to sanitize devotion, insisting that divine love and damnation share the same terrifying range.