Page 37

By Jack Joseph Smith

The Case Of Compliance The level has no hammer to tap To make sound of the concrete or refactory No watch across stones for a fisherman's No tap on the brain for a prisioner of war No execution to do or wait for No river lost to a buddy No soul gone Just grevience unspent Just grammer school as a nip Just a little to late For Roosevelt and radio to die Or not watch Vietnam like Bruce Mortan, The first and the last helicopter nerd From witch these bravest of men, would go in horror from the knife fight ready to ensue between the loss of a father or a son and there is no metephor or likeness NOW for I am struggling across this floor in blood to get this poem done

Original Scan

AI Interpretation

GPT

With Vietnam, fathers and sons, Roosevelt, radio, and blood on the floor, the poem insists that some historical grief cannot be softened by metaphor.

The poem defines compliance through the absence of tools, watches, rivers, and metaphor. Its history of war, helicopters, fathers, sons, and blood on the floor leaves the speaker with direct struggle rather than likeness.

Claude

'The Case Of Compliance' is built from negations ('No watch across stones for a fisherman's / No tap on the brain for a prisioner of war / No execution to do or wait for') and a run of 'Just' lines ending 'Just a little to late / For Roosevelt and radio to die'. It turns to Vietnam 'like Bruce Mortan, / The first and the last helicopter nerd' and a 'knife fight / ready to ensue / between the loss of / a father or a son', then closes 'and there is no metephor / or likeness NOW / for I am struggling / across this floor in blood / to get this poem done'.

The list of absences defines compliance by what is missing, and the catalogue of history and war builds toward a refusal of figurative language. The short, falling lines at the end make the struggle to write feel physical and immediate. The handwritten 'NOW' sharpens that shift from memory to the present act of writing.