Page 214

By Jack Joseph Smith

I can tell it's NINE YARDS down at the top The current is as a big dog fight, underneath that is, below you like teeth snarled, and Wide top to bottom with that evil breath, The WAY down RANCID tongue Now I am frightened Wider than guts and hope I want to go home I see less of myself than I thought I was But it is not a Rancid bad dog yet Yet I stretch o wider than I am And glisten through her grabbing of my blood Death is perfect More than thinking in my slant I don't worry about bobbing anymore While way away I see her going to do more than approaching When with a wave of no for her There I know I am free

Original Scan

AI Interpretation

GPT

Caught in a current figured as a dog fight and a nine-yards-down descent, the speaker moves through fear, rancid breath, blood, and diminishment toward a hard-won sense of freedom.

The underwater snarl of teeth turns the sea into combat rather than landscape, so terror begins below the visible surface. The handwritten additions intensify that terror with depth, rancidness, and a desire to go home. The feminine presence who grabs at blood is threatening but not entirely defined, which lets the poem hover between erotic struggle, mortality, and drowning. Freedom arrives not through calm escape but through a refusal, "a wave of no," that finally breaks the hold.

Claude

The descent turns the sea into violence: 'NINE YARDS down,' a current 'as a big dog fight, underneath,' 'teeth snarled' with 'evil breath' and a 'RANCID tongue.' Terrified and wanting 'to go home,' the speaker sees 'less of myself / than I thought I was,' stretches 'wider than I am,' and 'glisten[s] through her grabbing / of my blood' before deciding 'Death is / perfect.' Freedom comes not as calm escape but as refusal - 'a wave of no for her' - and the reading is held lightly given the 'mixed'/handwriting-heavy source.