By Jack Joseph Smith
Original Scan
AI Interpretation
Lying in the Holy Ghoast's name brings death near, while desert and mountain knowledge reduce wind, sound, water, and oil to harsh elements no one has even thought to ask about.
The opening warning is blunt and almost folkloric, binding speech and consequence together with no buffer. Once the poem turns to desert and mountains, the Holy Ghost becomes a traveler who knows equivalences ordinary people resist, especially the unsettling claim that water and oil are equal. The final note of neglect matters: the force has been present in those places all along, but nobody bothered to ask.
Opens with a blunt, almost folkloric warning binding speech to consequence: 'If ever you lie / then mention the Holy Ghoast / then soon you will die'. Presence is elemental -- 'Before and beyond wind / is as close as you get', 'not a dream / It is a sound'. As desert traveler the Ghost 'knows that water and oil are equal', with the unsettling prophecy that 'those underneath him / will get rid of them both'. He 'has been in the Mountains too', present all along 'Though you have never asked:' -- the trailing colon leaving the neglect open.