Page 131

By Jack Joseph Smith

Each time you go against the devil it is a similiar smile, chawk like, not a clown, it is always afraid of your eyes, the war begins throat to throat,, punches mean little, cause you got to have a heart, to have a hartatch Shy and earth, I didn't see a thing, in the middle of the sky with its enormous trouble I go I saw the sun think at least a second for I did everythime I came out of a cave It was because it was not my home I did not think about a thing that was true And now I can't understand why I mentioned it In the first place

Original Scan

AI Interpretation

GPT

The speaker faces the devil as a frightened, chalk-faced adversary and moves from bodily combat into a bewildered confession about caves, falsehood, and saying what should not have been said.

The poem keeps sliding between brawl, vision, and self-reproach, as if spiritual conflict can only be described through bruised physical terms. Coming out of the cave suggests emergence, but every emergence here is compromised by confusion and by the speaker’s own distrust of what he has named. The last lines are not a revelation but an embarrassment at having spoken at all.

Claude

The untitled page renders spiritual combat in bruised physical terms: facing the devil's 'chawk like' smile that is 'always afraid of your eyes,' the 'war begins throat to throat' where 'punches mean / little' because 'you got to have a heart, / to have a hartatch.' It then drifts into vision and self-doubt - coming out of a cave that 'was not my home,' not thinking 'a thing that was true' - and ends not in revelation but in embarrassment, unable to understand 'why I mentioned it / In the first place.'