Page 15

By Jack Joseph Smith

Streetcorner I didn't ask for anybody to cross my way, or to cross me Settled at my desk now to make myself deliver I am the conscience with drawn Street gossip,. and sin in the underground of homes,, pass me by,, and hide away, from me, there, Angry and narrow eyed,, the assult of my type makes life appear only to me I carry crosses and curses round robin Dawn to dusk I cherish class, but nothing of what would of been That is dislike and watching to close, The departed and the departure And my aloneness In a whisper That will not wilt, this starlive, this concrete TREE

Original Scan

AI Interpretation

GPT

The speaker stands apart from street gossip, class, departure, and traffic, making solitude feel like both burden and vocation.

The page defines the speaker through refusal and separation: he did not ask to be crossed, he watches street gossip pass by, and he carries crosses and curses in private. The closing handwritten additions make the solitude more imagistic, turning the unwilting whisper into 'this starlive' and 'this concrete TREE'.

Claude

Solitude is presented as both class marker and vocation — the speaker stands apart from gossip and traffic not by choice but by the force of a difference he cannot explain and does not apologize for.