Page 54
By Jack Joseph Smith
By Jack Joseph Smith
Original Scan
AI Interpretation
A short, intact satire places shared modern guilt and a man described as non money mad beside a gesture of submission to a new throne.
The isolated or offers two compressed alternatives: a savage defined by shared guilt, and a lower lip kneeling near power. Pleasure Sirs and the closing double question mark leave the address unsettled, questioning whether pleasure or independence can escape abasement. The fragmentary syntax is plainly present in the clean typed source rather than caused by damaged transcription.
Under the two-line title 'Pleasure / Sirs', the page offers two typed couplets separated by a centered 'or': 'The all equal guilt squinted out savage / Named modern non money mad man' and 'Sipping near the new throne / Where the bottom lip but kneels', ending on a typed '??'.
The mock-courtly address 'Sirs' frames two postures toward power: a savage made by shared guilt and renamed as a modern man indifferent to money, and a courtier sipping by the throne whose lip, not knee, does the kneeling. The centered 'or' and closing '??' turn the poem into a question the speaker refuses to answer, leaving pleasure and submission uncomfortably close.