Page 14

By Jack Joseph Smith

The Sixteeth Century The first time a child heard abstraction, the child went wild Against the law and Catholic Church, they ran and sang, "did you hear about the Sun and the Moon." Rock and Roll in the first of dreams Imagine that we care no longer We are not traped, and your tongues are done with The hangman is of our mist Very careful clowns cloud us They want the end It is always needed In aristocracy

Original Scan

AI Interpretation

GPT

A child responds to abstraction by defying law and the Catholic Church; the speaker then names hangmen, clowns and aristocracy.

The speaker links the child's excitement to the Sun, Moon and Rock and Roll. Handwritten L/O replacements change could to cloud in the clowns line. The mist/must overstrike still needs follow-up. The title's Sixteeth spelling does not identify a specific historical event.

Claude

'The Sixteeth Century' begins when 'The first time a child heard abstraction, / the child went wild', running 'Against the law and Catholic Church' and singing 'did you hear about / the Sun and the Moon.' The poem jumps to 'Rock and Roll in the first of dreams' and 'We are not traped,', then darkens: 'The hangman is of our mist / Very careful clowns cloud us / They want the end / It is always needed / In aristocracy'.

The poem sets a child's thrill at new ideas against church, law and rule by the few, and it links that old defiance to rock and roll. Its lines are short and flat, and the closing images of mist, hangman and clowns turn the early joy into a sense of threat that the poem does not explain.