Page 35

By Jack Joseph Smith

This is the time not to listen, Harvested field fire makes macular cloud; While children move under the smoke That is an ancient rite Free from sight, Spinning; Body Twirls Of laughter, Removed from the modern dance of death: Self made four wheel drive night light; Hunter, Silent arrow, or powered rifle Will keep whiskey breath From kissing rabbits in the ditch tonight. Mad salvage-man of the junk yard plains. Distroyer of economic images, Huge iron money man With one mind and no overhead He is the wild candelabra church thief He is the gleamed eyed brass watcher Loving closed factories in his vision Of shambles

Original Scan

AI Interpretation

GPT

A typed poem links harvested field fire, children under smoke, hunting breath, and a salvage-man of the junk yard plains.

The page joins rural ritual to modern death and industrial salvage. Its movement from children spinning under smoke to the wild candelabra church thief makes the anarchist-worker figure feel both comic and mythic.

Claude

Field fire, children's laughter, whiskey breath, hunting weapons, and the salvage-man combine into a rural-industrial portrait.

The poem's power comes from accumulation. It treats field burning as ancient rite, then moves into machines, rifles, closed factories, brass, and shambles, building a figure who belongs equally to folk ritual and industrial ruin.