Page 123

By Jack Joseph Smith

Change Tne While? Inside nothing changes } / - — Ya all think it 1s Young and old fuelol Ly Think it has Walking down the street Beat to death Some smile, and some do not Going by some know, some don't It is all the same Some have heart as one thing Some are seperate Ib my rvol And don't know how to think As long as there is war And those who wish there wasn't mang The American's I have known ge wt . id now ee st Nh ppt

Original Scan

AI Interpretation

GPT

"Change" argues that inwardly nothing changes very much, because youth and age, smiles and blank faces, thought and thoughtlessness all continue inside the same national life of war and those who oppose it.

The poem keeps flattening distinctions that people usually rely on to tell themselves history is moving. Being beaten down on the street does not produce revelation so much as another variation in a pattern already known. The closing line about the Americans the speaker has known makes the whole piece read like a weary civic judgment rather than a private complaint.

Claude

Change: inside nothing changes. Some have heart as one thing, some are separate and don't know how to think. As long as there is war.