By Jack Joseph Smith
Original Scan
AI Interpretation
The Holy Ghost arrives as a trip and duty through heaven, hell, good, evil, divided thought, struggle, pain, joy, the hung, and a shared human dream.
Calling the Holy Ghost a trip risks irreverence, but the poem uses that language to stress intensity, duty, and total psychic involvement. Thought goes seperate ways under life's murmer, while struggle and the Holy Ghost are made friends and pain and joy come from the trap like the hung. The final claim that everyone dreams the same way pushes toward a collective human condition rather than private revelation.
'Then comes The Holy Ghost' renders the spirit as a trip and a duty, 'As close to any trip any individual / 's duty / can imagine', spanning 'Some of our Heaven and all of our Hell'. Life's 'murmer' makes 'all thought / go seperate ways', yet 'struggle and the Holy Ghost / are friends', with 'Pain and joy singing From the trap'. The close reaches toward the collective rather than private vision: 'Like the hung / Will never be done / AS everyone in the world / dreams the same way'. This reading stays provisional: the page is mixed-band with handwritten insertions.