By Jack Joseph Smith
Original Scan
AI Interpretation
Walking, kneeling, crying, and skipped stones lead to a jagged confession in which luck, faith, William Blake, and madness converge in the claim that Jesus was crazy.
The movement between standing, kneeling, and crying gives the poem a bodily rhythm of prayer and breakdown. Luck and faith arrive "as a fast fist," so blessing is inseparable from violence or shock. William Blake appears as the witness for instinct, allowing the closing judgment on Jesus to sound less dismissive than awed by a dangerous intensity.
A poem of bodily devotion that swings between walking and kneeling: the speaker 'cry into the night / with the brilliance / that luck and faith / bring you as a fast fist,' so blessing arrives like a blow. The taunt 'Hey,, watch the dark go by' steadies into recurring images - 'the stone / that skips across the / lake, the jib on the sea' - emblems of skimming, instinctive motion. Citing that 'William Blake said / he was instinct,' the speaker lands the closing verdict 'I know Jesus was crazy,' a line spoken in awe of a dangerous intensity rather than dismissal.