The Tower

By Jack Joseph Smith

The first time leaning wind hit hard, secrets got defined at the bone And like chalk slicing lines of the mind, rather than metal, oo insanity builds and breaks images, just as bridges pillaed “on stone ‘Tn our life business like the circus is tight, and when yesterday's balance has fallen today, tomorrow won't depend on. explanation Yet in memory or conjured dream, thinking inbetween the disillusionment of reality, is the same as the adventurous searcn of the sailor Weakness for wishful war through windows will never work, for allowance is not kindly to deed, and holds on deliverance cancels all terms Yet though it is lovely: to close one's eyes for a single day, a breach of contract ‘still is to condem - After running altematives out to death; decision | takes on large possibilities, as organized as a persons first words
When we are not the injury in the series of skins we trade, plants and children like Dylan Thomas, won't confuse accidents with inquisitiveness Ané I have unblessed personally passed like pawn shops, rs who enjoy extreams with electricity; ke a shot bird one million youngste. and madness is not just berserk li. While it is of no great matter T. S. Eliot; that we do not hear the wish the world sends when it waves; as modem speed has no power when it pulls Now let anger get an ahorizon on guilt; letting alonelessness create souls; until the battle in civilization, makes worried insects out of etermity's Some say violence is not listening to the proper drum Yet wisdom watches the hawk of the entire storm, that draws populations like paper into hiding as halves On overlearning wonder we trot a nice down step; our symptoms ignoring hell cast to outsiders lost in heaves Yet with no clash, as in confrontation; even swift lust, like out of a fox, finds no music, or win of heir
When God is gone, prison and claustrophobia, can reach fear far past the whip;. to do what is necessary for worlds of their om Until no scene, no life, could be adjusted, Earl Flynn had his timepiece set wrong; and by technicians who were tired, the symphony's masters were taped Because it is dawn when the dammed and the do-gooders, have leaving in common;. ‘ remaining like a judge, the bear has already found areas away from their ashes And the biues go from cords to feathers, ; pecause the instrument Farth when with air playitg tricks, lies quicker than both ways for the rich But the tower has no use for talk or truth or magic; and decides to begin and to end, as drama does in a closet With a sea of er bird, with no mention of chirp or of wave Yes desire for quiet not For nerves like shellfish in a can, are roaring with a laughter, as strong as it is strange.

Original Scan

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AI Interpretation

GPT

A philosophical meditation on mental structure under duress, in which wind, chalk, bone, and stone become figures for the mind's attempt to build and break meaning, moving through references to Dylan Thomas, T. S. Eliot, and Errol Flynn toward a final image of the tower as a place that has no use for talk, truth, or magic.

The poem's three-page scope allows it to cycle through anger, guilt, claustrophobia, and necessity without settling, making the tower itself a figure for endurance without resolution.

Claude

'The Tower' is a three-page argument about how a mind builds itself against pressure and what that construction costs. It opens with 'leaning wind' that hits hard and gets 'secrets... defined at the bone', then runs a sustained metaphor of contracts and circus balance ('our life business like the circus is tight'), where to close one's eyes for a single day is 'a breach of contract'. Named men - Dylan Thomas, T. S. Eliot, 'Earl Flynn' with 'his timepiece set wrong' - are invoked not as authorities but as instances of mistimed lives, while 'the symphony's masters were taped' by tired technicians, reducing art to recording. The closing turn declares 'the tower has no use for talk or truth or magic' and ends with 'nerves like shellfish in a can... roaring with a laughter, as strong as it is strange'.

The poem's controlling figure is the tower as a self that fortifies by refusal: it 'decides to begin and to end, as drama does in a closet', sealing itself off with 'no mention of chirp or of wave'. Smith threads a legal-economic vocabulary - 'business', 'contract', 'allowance', 'terms', 'deliverance cancels all terms' - through cosmic and theological scale, so that personal endurance reads as a kind of grim accounting. The middle page is the densest, where 'When God is gone, prison and claustrophobia can reach fear far past the whip', and the dammed and the do-gooders share only 'leaving in common'; even violence here is reframed as 'not listening to the proper drum' while 'wisdom watches the hawk of the entire storm'. The OCR is degraded in patches ('pillaed on stone', 'searcn of the sailor', 'win of heir'), so some local readings stay provisional, but the overall movement is clear: against every collapsing structure, the body's caged nerves keep up a strange, involuntary laughter that no tower can silence.