By Jack Joseph Smith
Original Scan
AI Interpretation
Fire, stars, sticks, and seven novelists turn perception into a threat display, as the speaker challenges an unnamed rival to fight a war in words.
The opening insists that vision depends on what has been missed: fire appears only after the wind was ignored, and the star first shines when the moon is gone. Staring at one thing for too long becomes its own form of blindness, until the poem suddenly hardens into menace with the stick and the promise to break someone. Counting seven seas and seven novelists turns literary knowledge into a weapon, not a refuge.
Perception defined by what was missed, then turned into menace. 'Your see the fire when you / haven't watched the wind', and 'The first time I saw a star snine / is when the Moon had gone away' -- staring 'at one thing / For a very long time' is its own blindness. The page hardens into threat: 'watch me / with a stick', 'Call across the poor seven seas', and the literary boast becomes a weapon -- 'Add up in your head the seven / novelists I know, / and I will break you. / You want a war with words,, / you know who you are'.