Page 169

By Jack Joseph Smith

"For Christ's sake, those fucking aids were pro- bably Vice President's," laughing with a squeal(like); "I really wanted that money!" And then he slaped his head and lughed, choking on the smoke. He got up from his bed, went over to his desk and began to write a poem. He would make it a clear express- ion of himself. He would talk about childhood and when in Orfanage would go out with his Christmas five dollars to buy a watch. Then go out in the street and hustle it for ten. He would talk about how being an American Mar- ine was why he understood Che Gurvirre. He started; I went down the Christmas New York beat For five years that same old street Plated With a silver watch you could step with your thumb; With all the white and watching Never taken as a bum was I at the crossing ing-ing-ing It was a wonderful time of the year It was a wonderful time, For, silver watch and ten And when my street heart sings It makes me think of then And went on; The structure is military light: Military light is the belief I have in movies Then he would talk in his poem about Prison, and deciding on the stage; Suddenly he looked up. "How can I Tell them about prison in Hawaii, and deciding on the stage?"

Original Scan

AI Interpretation

GPT

Jiven Joe answers rejection by turning childhood hustle, military identity, and prison memory into a poem that keeps interrupting itself with harder questions.

The page shows him converting humiliation into authorship. The embedded poem makes memory into stage material, but the handwritten interruption about prison in Hawaii shows that his self-myth still hits points he cannot smoothly perform.

Claude

Stung by rejection - 'I really wanted that money!' - Jiven Joe answers by writing a poem 'a clear expression of himself': the orphanage child who took 'his Christmas five dollars to buy a watch' and 'hustle it for ten', the Marine who therefore 'understood Che Gurvirre'. The lyric makes a chant of that hustle - 'Plated / With a silver watch / you could step with your thumb', 'Never taken as a bum was I at the crossing ing-ing-ing' - and lands the book's recurring equation, 'Military light is the belief I have in movies'. But the page ends on doubt over how to render the rest: 'How can I tell them about prison in Hawaii, and deciding on the stage?' Self-mythologizing snags on what cannot be made presentable.