By Jack Joseph Smith
Original Scan
AI Interpretation
A billboard painter climbs and crawls, watches wasps, and works with signs, memory, and makebelieve. The closing rows address an onlooker and refer to good ones who are not paid by the union.
The speaker relates the painter's labor to what drivers and street users see. The typed desine remains as written rather than becoming desire; its intended meaning is open. The faint onlooker row now has a provisional reading, so the interpretation no longer treats it as wholly unreadable.
'THE BILLBOARD PAINTER' describes a man who 'climbs and crawls' and 'makes sure the wasps / Won't die on the second shift', for whom 'Truth must not excape the auto...', ending 'It should be stated onlooker; / good ones are not paid by the union., / or a wrinkle..'
The poem honors a precarious trade through odd, compressed images; the typed spellings desine and excape are kept, and onlooker is a provisional reading.