Page 9
By Jack Joseph Smith
War is not a child
War is God if you
happen to believe
in that one
And with their frantic
names passed down,
All wanders Afterwards
have had nothing to do
with death--
Your friend,
Jack
Original Scan
AI Interpretation
GPT
This handwritten page treats war as a faith object rather than a child, then refuses to let death remain the center of everything afterward.
The corrected dash and signature punctuation keep the page's note-like intimacy intact. Its bluntness is personal rather than abstract: the closing `Your friend, Jack` makes the antiwar declaration feel addressed.
Claude
A signed letter-poem: war as a god 'if you happen to believe in that one,' frantic names passed down, wanders afterwards having nothing to do with death, signed 'Your friend; Jack' — one of the few places the author's name surfaces in the book.