By Jack Joseph Smith
Original Scan
AI Interpretation
A fragmentary urban travel scene turns into a wary approach to ridicule, money, and the small relief of making it home.
The city and country are held together like a brace, suggesting support that also feels restrictive. Cobblestone, highway, tavern, park, and a dead swimming pool create a landscape of exhaustion and leftover public space. The poem centers on exposure: the speaker moves toward being kidded like a modern soldier while others profit in his absence, so the ride home feels less triumphant than narrowly salvaged.
Titled 'TIRED...', the poem follows a speaker moving with 'the city and the country both as a brace' from 'midnight interior to highway', past 'a tavern along a park / Off a dead swimming pool', approaching a return where he expects 'To be kidded like a modern soldier' by people who made money 'While I was gone'. It ends with 'How lucky to get a ride home'.
The poem is a homecoming seen through fatigue: cobblestone, highway, tavern, and a drained pool make a landscape of leftovers. The comparison to a modern soldier suggests a returning man whose absence others profited from and who now gets ribbed rather than welcomed. The last line is quietly grateful, so the weariness of the title settles into a small, sincere relief at simply arriving.