By Jack Joseph Smith
Original Scan
AI Interpretation
Women dying, jails and hospitals shifting, lakes, rivers, and open ocean all test whether anyone mistaken for Jesus can survive belief.
The repeated question is accusatory, asking whether influence, damage, and devotion have made someone imagine himself divine. Women, jail, and hospitals show how one gesture can alter whole systems of suffering and confinement. The final sequence ranks dangers with brutal clarity: drunkenness in a lake is foolish, a wild river is considered peril, and the middle of the ocean means true loss.
An accusatory litany built on the repeated 'Do you think you are Jesus' - when 'women die for you,' when a single move makes 'the world or jaail / and hospitals' alter themselves 'Permintatly like a cross.' It presses on belief itself, asking whether anyone can doubt that 'Jesus / dosen't know everything you do.' The poem ends by ranking watery dangers with deadpan clarity: 'Drunk in the lake / is foolish,' the 'wild river' a 'danger thought about first,' and diving 'into the middle of the oceanr' means 'your lost' - mistaken grandeur measured against real drowning. The transcript preserves the source spellings 'jaail,' 'Permintatly,' 'believeing,' 'dosen't,' and 'oceanr.'