By Jack Joseph Smith
Original Scan
AI Interpretation
This shorter "Early" reduces life to a finger-snap sequence of war, jail, artistic obscurity, and the stubborn sweetness of thinking about California from anywhere.
The poem is built from imperative fragments, giving history the rhythm of commands no one asked to obey. Painters fail not because the work is weak but because they cannot surrender it, which makes refusal central to the poem's ethic. California remains the one sustained pleasure, a mental elsewhere strong enough to survive prison and war.
Early short version: snap your fingers, go to war; snap your fingers, go to jail. The painters couldn't give it up and still damn is it good to think about California.