Page 44

By Jack Joseph Smith

The Tower The first time leaning wind hit hard, secrets got defined at the bone And like chalk slicing lines of the mind, rather than metal, insanity builds and breaks images, just as bridges pillared on stone In our life business like the circus is tight, and when yesterday's balance has fallen today, tomorrow won't depend on explanation Yet in memory or conjured dream, thinking inbetween the disillusionment of reality, is the same as the adventurous search of the sailor Weakness for wishful war through windows will never work, for allowance is not kindly to deed, and holds on deliverance cancels all terms Yet though it is lovely... to close one's eyes for a single day, a breach of contract still is to condem - After running alternatives out to death; decision takes on large possibilities, as organized as a persons first words

Original Scan

AI Interpretation

GPT

Under pressure, fantasy and explanation fall away, and the poem argues for hard decision in the face of collapse, imbalance, and mortality.

Wind, bone, chalk, bridges, circus balance, and breach of contract turn thought into a structural problem rather than a private mood. The poem distrusts wishful war through windows and even the brief luxury of closing one's eyes, because avoidance only postpones judgment. By the close, decision is presented as something grave but necessary, almost primal in its scale and clarity.

Claude

'The Tower' opens the sequence by treating thought as structure under load: 'insanity builds and breaks images, / just as bridges pillared on stone', life is 'business like the circus... tight', and after 'running alternatives out to death; / decision takes on large possibilities, / as organized as a persons first words'.

The poem casts the mind as an engineering problem rather than a mood - wind hitting bone, secrets 'defined at the bone', 'chalk slicing lines of the mind', bridges and circus balance - so sanity and madness become matters of structural load and collapse. Its ethic is decision under pressure: it distrusts 'Weakness for wishful war through windows' and even 'the brief luxury' that 'it is lovely... / to close one's eyes for a single day', because avoidance is 'a breach of contract' that 'still is to condem'. The quiet reversal is the close, where decision arrives not as elaborate calculation but 'as organized as a persons first words' - the basic, primal coming-into-speech. Source spelling 'condem', the dropped possessive in 'persons', and the open line spacing are kept as the scan shows them.