Page 331

By Jack Joseph Smith

On both sides Talking to terror Your guns are not, *, | your soul If we need to ret away, say, we can crawl out of there | and leave the guns behind | The guns are not paintings gms time trey are all around; : ~ mo picking on anybody, Hl _& about that one We can get them again; TF | right down the road Y See what I mean? i This is why violence is net the soul \ { | i

Original Scan

AI Interpretation

GPT

Crawling away and buying replacement guns down the road turns weapons into disposable objects, so terror cannot masquerade as the soul that must be saved.

The argument depends on contempt for the gun's supposed sacredness. A weapon can be left in the dirt, replaced down the road, and separated from the body without damaging the soul. By calling guns something other than paintings, the poem also refuses to aestheticize them; they are tools, and violence fails precisely because it pretends to be essence.

Claude

Reprise of the 'On both sides / Talking to terror' passage from 258; guns not soul, crawl away and leave them behind, guns are not paintings, 'we can get them again right down the road.' Same refrain as a standalone page.