Page 201

By Jack Joseph Smith

Title by, John Hiatt I can't se the coast line anymore T was young; hell raising was my note book I knew collage was easy; I could not play So I went to Vietnam instead, and decided just to stay there, and it is different to rum into someone who is the oppisite, two _ drawing down time like a snake whip snaps & The sun fell as its usual glope, and swallows and strange birds too,, were struggling to set in our hands, actually that was the end of our lives, the place where we let things go, or see s how it it done because you have stayed around We have seen the sky split, and the Sun’go away to ask God what is wrong,, and I didn’t think it mattered when II walked the morning sand, and looked out at the ship I had apandoned leaving ~— for another land,, and drinking from rivers and picking up rocks we knew were stars

Original Scan

AI Interpretation

GPT

"I can't se the coast line anymore" recasts youth, Vietnam, and an encounter with an opposite soul as the start of a life lived beyond ordinary bearings.

Choosing Vietnam because college was easy but unplayable gives the speaker a life founded on refusal rather than ambition. The opposite person he meets is not just a lover or comrade; the two of them draw down time "like a snake whip snaps," making intimacy feel dangerous and exact. Swallows, morning sand, and the abandoned ship turn the coast into a place where one life has already ended and another has begun without explanation.

Claude

A John Hiatt epigraph opens a confessional riff: hell-raising as notebook, college skipped for Vietnam, and a companion who is the opposite of the speaker. The sky splits, the sun goes to 'ask God what is wrong,' and the abandoned ship becomes emblem of a life redirected toward rivers and starlike rocks.