Page 21

By Jack Joseph Smith

IX There is no nail off my thumb bursting in plums To big to be squid fine enough to be beads Split motor and sail with time Enjoy the billows exactly on I guess these sea hawks think their Generals Arn't we on the ocean and they believe themselves cayotes Incidently how long has it been since anybody had coffie cause whatever we want to call the top just went down Constintly through the brain Put on the gloves Danger during lucky rain And now it's Christ Leaving it that way

Original Scan

AI Interpretation

GPT

The page moves from thumb, plums, squid, beads, motor, sail, sea hawks, and coyotes into coffee, a fallen top, gloves, lucky rain, and Christ.

The reviewed text keeps the page's odd sea logic intact: bodily images and nautical motion slide into comic animal confusion and then into a blunt religious closure.

Claude

Section 'IX' keeps to the open water, sizing things up - 'To big to be squid fine enough to be beads' - and noting how the crew must 'Split motor and sail with time.' Its comedy is in the bird politics: 'these sea hawks think their Generals,' yet 'they believe themselves cayotes,' while the men just wonder 'how long has it been since anybody had coffie.' The mood tips downward - 'whatever we want to call the top just went down,' 'Put on the gloves,' 'Danger during lucky rain' - before a blunt religious arrival, 'And now it's Christ / Leaving it that way,' with 'Constintly,' 'coffie,' 'Arn't,' and 'cayotes' preserved.