Page 34

By Jack Joseph Smith

One More Truth It didn't mean a damn when we said it All that space out there for two to do There is no last dance and temptation, will never reach an end Don't go down on those who mistake you All souls see the same when their done Falling in the weeds firing a rifle As you will half bent fall on a wooden floor Your forehead against a brass bed asking for forgiveness, while the pardon of our Lord has us make a table, that will not be broken by a fist It is all that anyone should want; ah hugh, the tumbleweed, with quad dots, that is and turning line, and don't let your brain go away from the first time Something was true

Original Scan

AI Interpretation

GPT

This revision joins a rifle, bodily collapse and forgiveness to the wish for an unbroken table.

The forehead against a brass bed gives forgiveness a physical setting. Typed lf replaces the canceled ve of have, producing the source spelling half. An unread handwritten word and the placement of that is remain unresolved near the ending.

Claude

This retyped 'One More Truth' keeps the opening lines of the earlier draft, then reshapes the middle: 'As you will half bent fall on a wooden floor / Your forehead against a brass bed asking / for forgiveness, while the pardon / of our Lord has us make a table'. It ends 'It is all that anyone should want; / ah hugh, the tumbleweed, with quad dots,' then a handwritten 'that is', 'and turning line, and don't let your brain / go away from the first time / Something was true'.

Compared with the draft on the previous page, the revision makes the scene more bodily, with a forehead pressed to a brass bed, and ties forgiveness directly to the Lord's pardon. The unbreakable table remains the central image of shared, built faith. The ending keeps the idea that the first true moment must be held onto, while the handwritten changes show the poem still in progress.