Page 178

By Jack Joseph Smith

Th oud Ip fmf Pome —ofeih on Po phiw i shold GE th poy le Ego afid—Thoveht- Take your poetry oan i ET 6 7 Let the ego go as it will Phen tare Tt—out Read between the lines Save that part There will be something There will be Geometry There won't be worship cause you won't get to the end of it There will be power though, even if you leave, to be tough enough not to throw your mind away Representations included ' Derrer ° What a \collection

Original Scan

AI Interpretation

GPT

"Ego and Thought" turns poetic practice into a sequence of keeping, tearing out, and salvaging, where geometry and power remain after worship has failed.

This page is more decisive than the surrounding ego poems because it gives actual commands: let ego move, cut it away, preserve what survives. Geometry matters because it suggests structure without devotion, a pattern that can hold without asking for reverence. The ending values toughness of mind not as pride but as refusal to discard thought altogether.

Claude

Ego and Thought (heavy marginalia): take your poetry, let ego go, save that part, there will be Geometry, there won't be worship. Power though, even if you leave, tough enough not to throw your mind away.