Page 12
By Jack Joseph Smith
By Jack Joseph Smith
Original Scan
AI Interpretation
A compact handwritten poem moves from the soaring sounds of Buffolo and a directional Riffle toward women folding half the sky before an emphatic command to take the shit out of it.
The page works through scale, direction, and compression. Its strange map of south, angles, women, and a mad divided sky culminates in a blunt demand to strip away whatever obstructs the image.
A short handwritten poem tracks a sweep from the soaring sounds of Buffolo, along a Riffle, to a M - to And South Askin, then balances WOMEN against the Angles as they fold up HALF the sky - MAD sky, Last/Part - before an abrupt imperative to TAKE the SHIT out of it.
The source spellings and mixed capitalization (Buffolo, Riffle, Askin, and the emphasized WOMEN/HALF/MAD/TAKE/SHIT) read as deliberate emphasis rather than error, giving the piece a shouted, telegraphic cadence. The opening geographic drift (Buffolo, Riffle, South, Askin) sets a disoriented sense of place and direction, which sharpens into the imagistic claim that women fold up half a 'MAD' sky. The closing couplet breaks register entirely into blunt, imperative slang, cutting the lyrical buildup short with a demand to strip the piece down to something plainer or more essential.