Page 5

By Jack Joseph Smith

The head stockmen was frightened by power Which is why he had been picked To record our hours of hellish resemblance I too feared the First Mate But I gathered the weight And explained with alarm, "whatever harm comes to Mam must be entered in the legger" While the head stockmen was up on a tier Knowing the reason no doctor was here to tend her And his face was frozen in fear For what I had said Ment he would have to confront His terror of the mate Which I well knew he would not be able to do So I called him on it Saying with him "we would all ride it out I said, "we will tell the mate, that Mam must be saved." My case was absurd But not blurred For it made all aware That as well as the fear A developed reason for hate could be molded against the mate As the stockmen knew For this scene to be entered in the legger Would surely gain on the Captain's brain. as well as the mate's An aftermath bait Concerning their seagoing fate And incidently an American against rule might make them wonder about the fucker That wanted their ass up on the stake marking their time toward the assunder While, "your crazy," called the headstockmen "And what about Mam?" asked the seamen all around "She's in pain," And five holes down from the sun without a gun They voted to beat her to death I was a foreigner Now switched out of power When a young student of archecture on adventure Spoke up in measure

Original Scan

AI Interpretation

GPT

The page shows resistance taking a procedural form, as fear, record-keeping, and collective anger begin to turn against the mate.

What matters here is not only outrage but strategy. The speaker tries to force the suffering of 'Mam' into the ledger, because once the violence is recorded it can become leverage against ship authority; that makes paperwork itself part of the struggle. The page is also bluntly social and obscene, keeping the language of the men intact while showing how solidarity forms inside panic, disgust, and threat.

Claude

The page makes record-keeping itself the battleground. The 'head stockmen,' chosen because he 'was frightened by power,' keeps the log of 'our hours of hellish resemblance,' and the narrator presses him that 'whatever harm comes to Mam / must be entered in the legger.' The argument is openly tactical - to enter the scene would 'gain on the Captain's brain' and the mate's, an 'aftermath bait / Concerning their seagoing fate,' especially with 'an American against rule' watching. The stockman calls him crazy ('your crazy'), but the deeper horror is the verdict: 'five holes down from the sun / without a gun / They voted to beat her to death.' The page closes by looping back to the student's speech, the crossed-out repeat preserved as physical page-text.