Page 46

By Jack Joseph Smith

The Govener's Mother We walked from the Court House steps Wounded Knee was over And we were newspaper revolutionaries who got about as far as the local delivery Portland was crisp and clear and still with shade for professional pictures By our driver The international cameraman We moved through the streets And stopped in parks for stills Then we came to a quaint Victorian neighborhoed Where we stepped out of the truck onto the thin sidewalk It was to admire the softness through a lens It was sort of similiar to the softness we had enjoyed To the light hand clapping of the crowd After extra sugar complements in our coffie from the jail A congressman for defence With the wit of country slang A plenary council Attorney General as our private judge With a perfect Shakespearian faggot for a face Now I stood aside the coated brick below the eves While listening to the click of the camera As her majesty approached My conversation was with Murphy An Irishmen who had seen harder times He had wanted to go to fight But I had taken a young boy along to make sure we wouldn't Now it was discussion And to assure us we were sincere This good morning brandy lady coughed for passage

Original Scan

AI Interpretation

GPT

This "Govener's Mother" page turns a Wounded Knee protest aftermath into a Portland scene of newspaper revolutionaries, cameramen, courthouse politics, Murphy's harder times, and a brandy lady passing like royalty.

The page is self-mocking about political theater: the group has revolutionary feeling but reaches only local delivery, professional pictures, and courthouse conversation. Its social satire sharpens when public radicalism crosses the path of the governor's mother, whose passage exposes class performance inside the political scene.

Claude

The Portland Wounded Knee march goes through crisp streets by truck, stops for park photographs, and arrives in a Victorian neighborhood for stills while the narrator's Irish companion Murphy had seen harder times.

The march's self-described limit - 'newspaper revolutionaries who got about as far as the local delivery' - is both self-deprecating and accurate. The 'good morning brandy lady coughed for passage' arriving as the Governor's Mother is an image of social worlds briefly and awkwardly adjoining without collision, two kinds of morning dignity passing each other on a Victorian sidewalk.