Silver and Gold

By Jack Joseph Smith

In this time as all others we have not crossed Even a section of differance as money changers We say Jesus is not the Christ and get it streight We do not pray to be abolished as if work was God Rather give us the heavens piece mill for forever A sigh of relief tells stone people to stop covering Not the least idea do I have about that being right Just a thought true with time less than starlight Put your eye and tongue into the cavern of a wildcat Possession has no place with power anymore Exchange with no value make that mayham dish exciting To know you can be with no sin when your material love, is much more than perhaps, to be gone tomorrow...

Original Scan

AI Interpretation

GPT

A theological and material poem where value, power, sin, and barter are all tested against a harder spiritual economy.

Claude

Money changers in the temple — the biblical reference is immediate and undisguised. The poem argues that in this time, as in all others, we have not crossed even a section of the difference between material value and spiritual worth. The economy of silver and gold remains the economy of sin.

The phrase 'a section of difference' treats moral progress as measurable terrain, implying that we have not even begun to traverse the distance between what we trade and what we believe.