Page 267

By Jack Joseph Smith

The Mess If I was to make love to a sculpture I doubt that male or female would have a difference; it is when not a soul walked by me, cause I had no soul to walk by anything,, just beeause I erossed the bridge and then turned around and eame baek, dosen't mean that I did not like the place,, and I didn't even try not to make a mistake, and remember thinking about it before it was all over cause there is the best intelligance your gonna get And what have I done; is it anything like a dream? Seeing anybody on the bulivard should be love; yet if I were young, no matter how hard it is, I still would not join

Original Scan

AI Interpretation

GPT

The Mess links sculpture, bridges, mistakes, boulevard love, and soul-loss in a confession that distrusts belonging even while treating aftermath as intelligance.

Making love to a sculpture strips desire of gender and warmth, leaving contact with form itself. The bridge crossing and immediate return suggest indecision, but the speaker insists that coming baek does not mean the place was unloved. The best intelligance is grimly earned through error and aftermath, while the final refusal to join remains firm even in youth imagined after the fact.

Claude

'The Mess' strips desire to bare form -- 'If I was to make love to a sculpture / I doubt that male or female would / have a difference' -- and confesses soul-loss: 'I had no / soul to walk by anything'. Crossing 'the bridge and then turned / around and eame baek' is defended as no rejection, and aftermath becomes wisdom: 'remember thinking / about it before it was all over... / is the best intelligance your gonna get'. It distrusts belonging even as it longs -- 'Seeing anybody on the bulivard should / be love' -- and ends in firm refusal: 'if I were young, no matter how / hard it is, I still would not join'.