Page 45
By Jack Joseph Smith
By Jack Joseph Smith
Original Scan
AI Interpretation
A chain of aphoristic images portrays modern violence and speed as forms of failed attention that shrink human feeling into panic, halves, and noise.
The poem ranges from plants and children to Dylan Thomas, pawn shops, electricity, T. S. Eliot, insects, hawks, drums, and foxes, building a world where culture and instinct keep colliding. Its moral center lies in listening: violence is linked to missing the proper drum, while wisdom watches the whole storm instead of surrendering to speed or lust. Even where the transcription is rough, the argument stays forceful, insisting that alienation and overcharged modern life deform perception before they erupt into action.
Continuation of 'The Tower' with T.S. Eliot name-checked again, anger asked to find a horizon over guilt, alonelessness as soul-maker.
The poem wants anger to be functional rather than relieved — it asks for horizon, not release. The key move is the suggestion that alonelessness, not communion, creates souls. The final image of the fox's lust without music or 'win of heir' turns the page into a warning against conflict-without-confrontation, which is the book's recurring subject.