Page 44
By Jack Joseph Smith
By Jack Joseph Smith
Original Scan
AI Interpretation
The crucifixion is refused as a repeated spectacle, and devotion becomes an enraged wish to stop the cycle by force.
The page turns devotion into intervention: nails, spear, heart, hands, desert, sand, hill, and repeated crucifixion are treated as a cycle the speaker wants to interrupt. The restored source spellings Evem and Crissed keep the page closer to its typed artifact, while unstable handwritten revisions intensify the refusal to let the scene repeat cleanly.
'Jesus' begins as devotion - 'Is my life. // Again my life' - then turns devotion into violent intervention against the Passion. The speaker demands rescue and revenge at once: 'Take those nails out of your hands / Take that spear out of your heart / Stop thos men with their nails and hammer / Kill those men with a spear, take them alll / now.' His rage targets repetition rather than the crucifiers alone, naming a cycle 'we / have many times accomplished, / To let him, the guy,, be crusified again,, / and again and again,, to kiss like a wish,' which 'Is never the best place to be during death.' This reading stays provisional: the page is needs-followup with uncertain handwriting around 'now / down so left is none' and the hill passage. Source spellings 'Evem,' 'Crissed,' 'acrossed,' 'thos,' 'withiut,' 'dought,' 'crusified,' and 'alll' are preserved.