Page 170
By Jack Joseph Smith
By Jack Joseph Smith
Original Scan
AI Interpretation
The speaker sets beginnings and endings against a fascist public atmosphere, insisting on ordinary human scale while refusing both evil's logic and any messianic self-image.
The poem moves from domestic instruction to political disgust without changing tone, which makes the critique feel lived rather than rhetorical. Its sharpest line is the claim that everyday speech already carries a bit of fashest, turning the whole street into a contaminated space. The later meadow and Jesus lines reject a heroic self-image, while the handwritten additions enlarge the earth imagery instead of turning the speaker into a savior.
Domestic instruction ('take a bath if you get a chance') slides without a tonal break into political dread, where no one may walk the street unless they carry 'a bit at least of fashest in their convetsatior.' Against that contamination the speaker plants his refusal of grandeur: he has 'walked on meadows' and 'across the sea' but 'never thought I was Jesus,' the handwritten 'HAS EVER GROWN' and 'MEADOWS THE EARTH' enlarging the earth without crowning the walker. The 'mixed' OCR band notes some artifact, but the reviewed handwriting placements hold.