The Tower

By Jack Joseph Smith

The first time leaning wind hit hard, secrets got defined at the bone And like chalk slicing lines of the mind, rather than metal, insanity builds and breaks images, just as bridges pillared on stone In our life business like the circus is tight, and when yesterday's balance has fallen today, tomorrow won't depend on explanation Yet in memory or conjured dream, thinking inbetween the disillusionment of reality, is the same as the adventurous search of the sailor Weakness for wishful war through windows will never work, for allowance is not kindly to deed, and holds on deliverance cancels all terms Yet though it is lovely... to close one's eyes for a single day, a breach of contract still is to condem - After running alternatives out to death; decision takes on large possibilities, as organized as a persons first words
When we are not the injury in the series of skins we trade, plants and children like Dylan Thomas, won't confuse accidents with inquisitiveness And I have unblessed personally passed like pawn shops, one million youngsters who enjoy extreams with electricity; and madness is not just berserk like a shot bird While it is of no great matter T. S. Eliot, that we do not hear the wish the world sends when it waves; as modern speed has no power when it pulls Now let anger get an ahorizon on guilt, letting alonelessness create souls; until the battle in civilization, makes worried insects out of eternity's Some say violence is not listening to the proper drum Yet wisdom watches the hawk of the entire storm, that draws populations like paper into hiding as halves On overlearning wonder we trot a nice down step; our symptoms ignoring hell cast to outsiders lost in heaves Yet with no clash, as in confrontation; even swift lust, like out of a fox, finds no music, or win of heir
When God is gone, prison and claustrophobia, can reach fear far past the whip; to do what is necessary for worlds of their own Until no scene, no life, could be adjusted, Earl Flynn had his timepiece set wrong; and by technicians who were tired, the symphony's masters were taped Because it is dawn when the dammed and the do-gooders, have leaving in common; remaining like a judge, the bear has already found areas away from their ashes And the blues go from cords to feathers, because the instrument Earth when with air playing tricks, lies quicker than both ways for the rich But the tower has no use for talk or truth or magic; and decides to begin and to end, as drama does in a closet With a sea of one bird, with no mention of chirp or of wave Yes desire for quiet not For nerves like shellfish in a can, are roaring with a laughter, as strong as it is strange.

Original Scan

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AI Interpretation

GPT

The speaker describes decisions, mental images, anger, guilt, and fear through wind, bridges, and a circus. The speaker names Dylan Thomas, T. S. Eliot, and Earl Flynn, then describes a tower with no use for talk, truth, or magic and nerves roaring with laughter.

The speaker questions wishful war and compares prison fear with worlds of one's own. The tower's beginning and ending remain within the poem's comparisons, rather than a narrated visit to a particular building.


Claude

The poem opens 'The first time leaning wind hit hard, / secrets got defined at the bone', weighs balance, memory and decision, and ends with a tower that 'has no use for talk or truth or magic' and nerves 'roaring with a laughter, / as strong as it is strange.'

The tower is approached through abstraction rather than description, and the poem ends in a refusal of explanation. 'Earl Flynn', 'condem' and 'dammed' are kept as typed.