Page 7

By Jack Joseph Smith

Regret We have no stream in saying sorry, no fishing, certainly, To see things, No places Ive never been no hunting left; no lost in the woods, no first time, a loss of stories No street fights, no bugle on the born, no cross step, the dance is done our giving away are our loves to leave, gone as a the shaman we knew, away like that shank in a fight, it has left forscore, down as if not a shoulder knows a drum; this fire has no form, as if it were all by yourself you ever thought, when better is with EYES still encountered known, for just about all of us read the masters either before or during our marches and wandering; while this killing time has thrown us as a cast, tell alied and romanticized as lost. Not so kindly and further than any memory still alive has traveled; this counting of thy blessings, this wondering why our minds should our graveyards and poetiv stays to the stone, that we know the differance between the cross and christ and love the choice; scattered as sand is one and as pitched as power, we of the hell on Earth don't leave alone the wind or its flower, and of us children left to grow alone, alone like our mothers and fathers too, who take this task, and fight listening to the dreamers we are, not become, given, a birth... be absorbed or murdered. Let time take it locked in itself

Original Scan

AI Interpretation

GPT

The speaker regrets lost stories, love and violence, then asks time to take the remaining experience into itself.

The revisions add seeing, places never visited, a finished dance and EYES still encountered. The typed poetiv and differance remain in the revised graveyard passage. The lower block preserves be absorbed or murdered, but its unread opening and unplaced margin words prevent a complete account of that ending.

Claude

'Regret' opens 'We have no stream in saying sorry, no fishing, certainly,' and lists what is gone: 'no hunting left', 'no first time, / a loss of stories', 'No street fights', until 'the dance is / done'. It moves through a departed shaman, 'this fire has no form', the difference 'between the cross and christ', and 'children left / to grow alone, alone like our mothers and fathers too', and a handwritten ending adds 'be absorbed or murdered. / Let time take it locked in / itself'.

The poem builds its lament from repeated negations and long comma-spliced typed lines, so the losses pile up faster than they can be sorted. Handwritten additions such as 'To see things,', 'No places Ive / never been' and 'with EYES still encountered' make the regret more personal. The ending passes the unresolved losses to time instead of resolving them.