Page 57

By Jack Joseph Smith

The Slightest Thought If and when power is there,, and I don't even know what that is, but I know It's funny, Imagine me being a baby to thee While also I am too sick to intercourse thee No one leaves the road,, once your on it; we all know that The silence you hear about, insidethe stones of old books All the same like child and flag Of course not I knew all of this, but I can't remember Life is perfect with the loss of the mind Stils and tightropes, clowns and gatherings Shyness as the bitter part of war, one to another; suddenly your frame is a giant, with nothing to do

Original Scan

AI Interpretation

GPT

Power, sickness, war, silence, and old books are held together by a comic-strange voice that keeps enlarging and destabilizing the self.

The page moves from power and uncertainty into bodily sickness, road, silence, books, war, and scale. Its comedy is uneasy: the speaker knows and forgets at once, then suddenly becomes framed as giant and useless.

Claude

Power is held at arm's length -- 'I don't even know what that is, / but I know It's funny' -- while the speaker shrinks and sickens: 'Imagine me being a baby to thee', 'too sick to intercourse thee'. The poem locates meaning in the unreachable, 'The silence you hear about, / insidethe stones of old books', and stages its own forgetting -- 'I knew all of this, but I can't remember', 'Life is perfect with the loss of the mind' -- before the body swells uselessly: 'suddenly your frame is a giant, / with nothing to do'.