By Jack Joseph Smith
Original Scan
AI Interpretation
The Shadow remembers a childhood whisper older than any single person, where transparent bleeding head and hands and unseen angels turn fighting into an inherited summons.
The childhood line begins with imitation, but the whisper turns imitation into something inherited from far back. The silent sound gives the call a paradoxical authority, as if truth arrives before language can fully hold it. Transparent head and hands bleeding in art and act make violence inseparable from making, while the hidden angel keeps the heart's shadow unresolved.
An origin state of 'The Shadow' built on an inherited summons: 'When I was a child / I said if he did that / then I can fight', but 'Actually I heard it / A whisper', 'The silent sound / from way back / even before him'. The whisper turns imitation into something older than language and true. It returns to the recurring image -- 'pleading for warrior's / to come back', 'Transparent head and hands / Bleading in this art and act' -- where violence is inseparable from making, 'Letting not even an angel / to be seen in the shadow of a heart'.