Clensed

By Jack Joseph Smith

We could have as cauldrons Wisked away all in wandering Women and children are not adjustible, only individgual agony makes men happy A killing on the step of any country, that places another mind above yours If one should see the splendor in madness Then one must see the dignity in eternity This gift of fire same as sun This increase of indenity with caustieness of soul This vail worshiped, these bodies adored Sodum cast amost us, sin with no sea, no shore Hatered is easy when hurt, when not, it is a politieal hardship, none has found a way, again to see our daughters in love, for on all sides the sons are of our lonelyness and thusly crul The hoeror of pestilance revirced is the mistrust of solitude, each in their mistrust of theogony, all then in the curse of peace The trust of lines, or the blood of line The kill of the rabbit as a child, the gun later in the dark, angery in any neighborhood Cross across to make things right Proximity takes courage, which no European has ever had; isn't it interesting, that only distance saves the soul, in the last two lifetimes of course; a watchful eye, sleek and very well cared for, is with a lifetime given individually, a horror; family will be shot, men will go to wards, be happy enemy, America, finally, out of the air we are, will The end is a gathering, no more giving, not more taking; having what you have, showing to the Sun and Moon, likely the whisper of the loss to Cain the wrinkled nose of upbringing has been beautified in knowing Even animals realize that when alone, nothing is kinder than a sound This change through centuries, is why there are no trees in Europe Equally again, as well we have desired, our flesh in ashes, balancing, suggesting, an aerobatic slightness toward the almost, as good in this Earth as the slaughter; yes; while age says sight is the constant stumbling, over the magical rocks "While as a child only I was the saint with the sword" The grantie we stood on had no perception, until it was tugged across the Adriatic Yes, above the Bible we went, absolutely in the clouds Those on fire worshiped again, equally

AI Interpretation

GPT

A long, incantatory poem about violence, distance, Europe, and sacred identity, where private hurt keeps widening into historical catastrophe.

Claude

A long, oracular poem (titled with the source spelling 'Clensed') that opens on 'cauldrons' and wandering and keeps expanding private pain into world-historical violence - Sodom, Cain, Europe, the Adriatic, America 'out of the air.' Its governing idea is stated flatly: 'only distance / saves the soul,' and 'isn't it / interesting, that only distance / saves the soul.' The piece ends with figures 'on fire' who 'worshiped again, equally,' purification looping back to immolation.

Whatever cleansing means here, it is not gentle - it runs through 'the kill of the rabbit as a child, / the gun later in the dark' and the claim that 'Hatered is easy when hurt.' The most provocative thread is the indictment of nearness: 'Proximity takes courage, which no / European has ever had,' followed by the grim joke that 'this change through centuries, / is why there are no trees in Europe.' Closeness corrupts; only distance saves. The quoted self-mythology, 'While as a child only I was the saint with the sword,' plants a lone redeemer at the center of all this carnage. The diction is unstable and heavily misspelled, so several lines stay semantically slippery; the reading holds best at the level of its repeated thesis about distance and fire rather than any line-by-line argument.