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By Jack Joseph Smith

= \ : a ony a ; } cone — & hocdler Rom WITH Wot Pook ue | ; Two ——————ooS The polar bear was ewe hundred yards aw: ThE , Wermen he had hit it — Phroogh the glagk ponterse one could miss that birst of red Against that yellow sun over the space of snow == £07 SEU ee 3045 S Even blindness fess DS ais seyeee OW sAS7 Get He had got down on one knee . al. Ewtbe+r pe ft, L gw the bead) and he had aimed the barrel of SH IMNELI & p Stee Pel cod: B Putting it to the center Frest belly te el y : 5 eee = He pet the os pesenene enter = The NH3e SACtAHENW Phe bre boy Liedarg st Spreading phew frauds At the ep of | porwe Ae Dayode living white the weed OP Stzprees hy fo count on the head or heart SAL pL ees 7, Might be a mistake > With Tae ao, zs Why take chances It would be like being out of matches je = at T° tee fimaese Posturh WAS Aad- ye froze awd squeezed Ie man made might : The sight overwhelmed But the bear still charged He was huge on a bounding nervious system And fear in his finger like a piston i : The man pumped his magnum like a storm = = * The bullit had crushed the temple Le The man felt it in his genital * But the rush was to much ; s Such power spitting streams : As if the bears veins were ment for the air : To tear apart another artery Would bring a battery of men against him But about the whiskey bar ; The bear wouldn't let hi see that far : a Through his massiveness spreading wider *, ee ‘ Endiny - And when st Jelh Z he Rove e/ hole between rt/s EyeS ws s 434/ / EA Kin | SPT ! a ES — -

Original Scan

Page 6

AI Interpretation

GPT

This page keeps the Alaska register but turns more surreal, apparently mixing hustlers, rooms, and the distant body of a polar bear.

The poem feels like it wants to let physical scale do the work: small human scheming on one side, arctic animal magnitude on the other. That contrast gives the page its odd pressure.


Claude

A polar bear kill rendered kneeling, bead-drawn, magnum-pumped; the author's idiosyncratic spellings ('bullit', 'squeezed man made might') survive alongside OCR breakdown and marginalia, and the bear keeps charging even after the shot.