Page 38

By Jack Joseph Smith

The Little World Hello, I want something that I don't But if I don't want something that I want The scorge and the life, the catch in the rye She won't hate then when the've been gone The particals of lousy songs The wonder over misery, the shout holding your legs The guess as a true dream, any mistake never cleared Trimuph and the wave of a hand, any one of the seas, were oceans before you identified them, as red and blue and green and orange and gone, and black and white and grey and colorless down Wilder than all the world of thought Little by little we work our way out Crushed and left we don't quit on account We watch pity and hate thrive We don't pray, we laugh, say thank you Jesus, and see scorn as a definate hereafter Look how close we come to killing and taking See how far away they are from streams, natures magic ways, and the end of the line; that is machanically as it is spiritually, I with adverbs simply, during this little world speak

Original Scan

AI Interpretation

GPT

This page turns desire, scorn, streams, thought, and survival into a rough manifesto for living inside a damaged little world.

The poem keeps shifting tone from comic to hostile to prayerful. The restored correction layer makes the opening less abstract and more pointed, with the speaker moving from wanting and not wanting into particles, scorn, and survival.

Claude

'The Little World' is a rough survivor's manifesto that opens on contradiction - 'Hello, I want something that I don't / But if I don't want something that I want' - and a Salinger nod, 'the catch in the rye'. It assembles a catalog of small miseries ('The particals of lousy songs', 'The wonder over misery', 'any mistake never cleared') and then runs the sea back through naming and color until everything fades 'as red and blue and green and orange and gone, / and black and white and grey and colorless down'. The poem's spine is defiant communal endurance: 'Little by little we work our way out', 'Crushed and left we don't quit on account', 'We don't pray, we laugh, / say thank you Jesus, / and see scorn as a definate hereafter'. It ends measuring the distance between 'killing and taking' and 'natures magic ways', the speaker reduced to working 'with adverbs simply, / during this little world speak'. Source spellings 'scorge', 'particals', 'Trimuph', 'machanically', and 'definate' are preserved.