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By Jack Joseph Smith

Never knowing evil My first floor house had all twelve foot ceiling The brass bed was a hell of a lot older than fancy And when I five times in five months stared up at him streight his ghost head was bowed I must be honest LAST MoNth oN It was the next night I wound upstairs to his biding Tatered and old the house sirs I knew in years I would work up to my sharecropper studio Huge daylight always had huge possibilities for the room This new moon night had me with wine after midnight I let the door ruffel it's own way still And I went to the center where a bulb used to hang ANd thE pAlEst grEEN Moss huNg outsidE thE glAss for 100 fEEt whErE My AutuM gArdEN bENt bELow The windows were, but the planks were just big I took my elbow from knuckle outside of my temple to measure the bat as he came For one half hour the gallon red wine and figure eights had me on fire with the dangerous dream danced wE But then I got more thirsty for water When he chanced to spin at my window over a river garden INhErAtEd LEASE and I slipped like a precise saint out the close of an trying devel door WiNgs ANd - hE wAS goNE When I returned thAt dAwN ANd hAtE I KNEw dElt with thiNgs AftEr thE wood

Original Scan

AI Interpretation

GPT

The speaker recalls an old house, an upstairs room, wine and a bat circling at night. A marginal revision places pale green moss outside the glass and an autumn garden bent below it. A handwritten ending says he was gone when the speaker returned at dawn.

The bat's movements accompany thirst, danger and an attempted escape. Cancellations and detached additions leave the reading order unsettled. The ghost head belongs to the speaker's account, not independent evidence of a supernatural event. The lower-left note is retained provisionally after a second scan check.

Claude

A typed and heavily revised draft about a ghost: the speaker 'stared up at him streight his ghost head was bowed', goes upstairs on 'This new moon night', dances with a bat 'For one half hour', and slips out 'like a precise saint'; handwritten notes add the moss block ending 'gArdEN / bENt / bELow' and 'ANd - hE wAS goNE', with 'AftEr thE wood' at the foot.

The ghost, the bat and the wine blur into one night's vision. The detached margin notes, including 'hAtE I / KNEw dElt / with thiNgs', are provisional readings whose placement in the poem is uncertain.