The Child Knows

By Jack Joseph Smith

How you talk How you sin How you walk With a gun in your hand Better with a horse and a lasso How about the open sea You gotta chose the violent ship Further possibility with a North and South Pole Both on your own so cool Between the Earth and sky Most people have not seen God Still i'll bet it is true You Hobo streight up Like from Pittsburgh to Australia And end up where Heaven is vertical

Original Scan

AI Interpretation

GPT

The speaker addresses someone who talks, sins, and walks with a gun, then offers a horse, lasso, and violent ship. The speaker imagines the poles, bets on God, and describes hobo travel from Pittsburgh to Australia ending where Heaven is vertical.

The speaker combines travel instructions with belief despite the claim that most people have not seen God. The title names a child's knowledge, but the body does not narrate a particular child's education or journey.

Claude

The poem lists 'How you talk / How you sin / How you walk / With a gun in your hand', proposes a horse, a lasso and 'the violent ship', and after 'Most people have not seen God / Still i'll bet it is true' sends 'You Hobo streight up' toward 'where Heaven is vertical'.

The opening catalogue reads like a child's unblinking view of adult habits, and the poem widens into frontier and sea imagery and a wager on faith. The lowercase 'i'll' and 'streight' are kept as typed.