Page 258

By Jack Joseph Smith

On both sides Talking to terror Your gums are not, s , your soul Tf we need to pet away,. say, we can crawl out of there and leave the guns behind The guns are not paintings Sorte UMBYA4L (5 911 TresSSime tyes all around; no picking or anybody, about that one We can get them again; right dowm the road See what I mean? This is why violence is not the soul

Original Scan

AI Interpretation

GPT

Talking to terror strips the body from the soul, treats guns as disposable tools rather than icons, and argues that escape matters more than weapon worship.

Beginning with gums instead of soul is intentionally jarring, as if the poem wants to drag spiritual talk back through flesh before rejecting that equation. The crucial gesture is practical: crawl away, leave the guns, and recover them later if necessary. Calling guns "not paintings" refuses any aesthetic or symbolic glamour and keeps violence brutally ordinary.

Claude

Continues 257: 'Your gums are not your soul'; crawl away and leave the guns behind; 'guns are not paintings.' Violence as not-soul, because guns can be got again right down the road.