Page 19

By Jack Joseph Smith

Shame Is Hard Where to be wrong and wound out of weakness Thick with time I would kill my mate for an insult, while I would not cut a willow for firewood When you actually look at the end once, you never look again Every glance has gone past the dragon Swallowed up by the universe God and Earth are a place You can hear a hum, for awhile you can watch it too All of thou may never study your voice, it came and went so fast Mistakes make adventure impossible, yet don't listen to those who talk about being whole Seperate yourself so that thought is your way Tie it to us if you can, the knowledge of a second, or a sound is the gift that keeps hard shame away

Original Scan

AI Interpretation

GPT

The speaker contrasts violence toward a mate with restraint toward a willow, rejects wholeness and asks for thought and connection against shame.

Seeing the end once prevents the speaker from looking again. The handwritten changes introduce the dragon, hearing, thought and a sound. The closing knowledge of a second may mean a moment of attention; it does not establish a separate second kind of knowledge.

Claude

'Shame Is Hard' begins 'Where to be wrong and wound out of weakness' and admits 'I would kill my mate for an insult, / while I would not cut a willow for firewood'. After looking 'at the end once' the speaker sees every glance go 'past the dragon', hears 'a hum', and advises 'Seperate yourself so that thought is your way', ending with 'the knowledge of a second, or a sound' as 'the gift that keeps hard shame away'.

The poem sets violent pride against restraint and treats shame as something kept away by small attentions rather than by being whole. The handwritten revisions move the verbs from seeing to hearing and from watching to thought. The lines are short, aphoristic statements with little connecting syntax.