Page 44

By Jack Joseph Smith

High Watch Slide the Earth as a shoe hore, go ahead, put up im print, what those university boys are after Hell raisers don't need a priest; they make confessions to one another, sort of in the form of guiltless black humor Just the dial; me and the radio misplaced A truth about America; she has alot of songs "Lord can you hear me, when I fall Lord can you hear me, when I crawl Lord can you hear me at all" I am still the living savage I used to be the wind when it would twist. No matter what I left behind, it is true; that I felt at least sturdy when I landed: When you walk across a penny on the pavement and don't

Original Scan

AI Interpretation

GPT

This "High Watch" blends black humor, confession, radio prayer, national song, and a later handwritten penny image into a rough self-portrait of someone who still lands sturdy after every twisting fall.

The poem distrusts institutional absolution, letting hell raisers confess only to one another. America appears not as an idea but as a mislaid dial full of songs, especially the repeated plea for God to hear falling and crawling. The speaker's claim to remain a "living savage" gives the ending its hard resilience, while the handwritten penny fragment pulls the page back toward the luck-and-worth problem from the companion page.

Claude

High Watch with date ACS-1980: Slide the Earth as a shoe hore. Hell raisers don't need a priest; they make confessions to one another, guiltless black humor.