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By Jack Joseph Smith
By Jack Joseph Smith
Original Scan
AI Interpretation
"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 after the line about collage being 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.
Titled after a John Hiatt line, 'I can't se the coast line anymore' founds a life on refusal: 'hell raising was my note book,' 'collage was easy; I could not play,' 'So I went to Vietnam instead, and decided / just to stay.' Meeting 'someone who is the oppisite,' the two 'draw down time like a snake whip snaps,' an intimacy both dangerous and exact. Swallows 'struggling to sett / in our hands' mark 'the end of our / lives,' and as 'the sky split' and 'the Sun go away / to ask God what is wrong,' the speaker walks the morning sand past 'the ship I had abandoned,' redirected toward 'rivers' and 'rocks we knew were stars.'