Page 17

By Jack Joseph Smith

Bad Thoughts: You can't keep the gift And want the death Of the same person At the same time If one gives you something Impossible to buy And then begins to steal In all ways Stealing being the same Pathological now And how do you do Kill it perhaps, when your sure The eyes and the hands are a trick Tripped up not tying the knot There again, where you wanted Perception to be finished Place ones self in middle thought A place where danger is unredeamable Everybody should know kick the car, From adventure to the street Those who just don't, or those who have forgot Leave it alone, so you can come back, see it again; The answer to bad thought

Original Scan

AI Interpretation

GPT

The poem refuses the fantasy of loving the gift while desiring the giver's death, tracing betrayal back to the mind's appetite for violence.

The page names a mental trap: wanting to keep a gift while wishing away the giver. Its language turns betrayal into a street-level pathology, moving from possession and theft toward the harder discipline of leaving the bad thought alone.

Claude

'Bad Thoughts:' diagnoses an impossible double-wish - 'You can't keep the gift / And want the death / Of the same person / At the same time' - when a giver of 'something / Impossible to buy' then 'begins to steal / In all ways,' a stealing the poem calls 'Pathological now.' The speaker toys with murder ('Kill it perhaps, when your sure / The eyes and the hands are a trick') at the spot 'where you wanted / Perception to be finished,' in 'A place where danger is unredeamable.' Its resolution is restraint rather than action: 'Leave it alone, so you can come back, see it again; / The answer to bad thought.' Source spelling 'unredeamable' is preserved.