Page 71
By Jack Joseph Smith
By Jack Joseph Smith
Original Scan
AI Interpretation
This page turns moral accusation into something musical and theatrical, as if wickedness has both a sound, a stage, and a red line.
The language is rough, but the movement is clear: from deed to skyline to soul to the red line and silence. Even in fragmentary form, the poem feels like a study in how violence becomes atmosphere.
'Accumulation' is the first of several drafts of one dense, alliterative poem that turns moral menace into atmosphere. It opens on indifference toward evil -- 'The care about the wicked, without care, / about what the deed is stuck to' -- then accelerates through s-sounds: 'The star struck, the shine with the shank / Or to sink shattered down from the skyline / Sences sword to the soul.' The threat acquires location and finality: 'Praying never again on A red line,' 'As if lost were a place im a city,' and 'This is where death lives / to concur.' The close pulls it toward music -- 'Any string you can play / And Sound of music / You might here' -- so violence and song share one register. This reading remains provisional because the page is mixed-quality with needs_manual_review set, and an adjacent handwritten phrase above the sword line stays unresolved. Source spellings 'Sences,' 'im,' 'chawk,' 'sqeeks,' 'Abhororent,' 'silencior,' and 'here' (for hear) are kept as written.