Page 4
By Jack Joseph Smith
By Jack Joseph Smith
Original Scan
AI Interpretation
This very short handwritten page reduces the poem to eyes, gear at 100 yards, death, and a nervous system that keeps coming.
The corrected distance makes the fragment feel more like a sighting or targeting note. Its force comes from compression: body, machine, and reflex remain active after the word `DEAD` has already appeared.
Four compressed lines that read like a sighting note: 'The two EYES / THE GEAR at 100 yards / DEAD - THE NERVOUS system / KEEPS on coming.' The poem's force is in its sequence - eyes, then mechanism ('GEAR'), then the flat verdict 'DEAD,' then the refusal of that verdict as the nervous system 'KEEPS on coming' - holding the body's reflex alive past the moment of the kill.