Page 31

By Jack Joseph Smith

Doubt Everyone I knew Had already proved That I had nothing to prove And I vowed I would not let vanity Further terse the place Where I had sunk But how poor is a man With children on his knees When so many tales Are behind others He never got to see Anymore, I know the tempest is not the wind that creates distruction in the unforseen Rather, the world's lethargic sight Lets the slightest bit of pity Make for uncontroable disasters And drawing cards is difficult When doumb you've never played

Original Scan

AI Interpretation

GPT

This page presents doubt as the inner partner of poverty, vanity, pity, and disaster.

The poem is brief but severe. It makes emotional weakness feel less like a private flaw than a condition shaped by children, memory, and the world's lethargy.

Claude

'Doubt' opens on a wry paradox - 'Everyone I knew / Had already proved / That I had nothing to prove' - and a vow not to let 'vanity / Further terse the place / Where I had sunk'. The poem's ache is generational: 'how poor is a man / With children on his knees / When so many tales / Are behind others / He never got to see / Anymore'. Its central reversal redefines catastrophe - 'the tempest / is not the wind that creates / distruction in the unforseen', but rather 'the world's lethargic sight' that 'Lets the slightest bit of pity / Make for uncontroable disasters'. The last image stakes the title as a gambler's handicap: 'drawing cards is difficult / When doumb you've never played'. Source spellings 'distruction', 'unforseen', 'uncontroable', and 'doumb' are preserved.