Page 17

By Jack Joseph Smith

become levels, with a vast trace of templed islands, and the prehistoric is religions The crystal of a Caribbean sea had sharpened his sight to the edge; here even higher was held a hand promised at verge upon sun and stars, Animal power is in his head temple, and pulsating as doors are eyes. Unafraid of life to the point where he demands you believe he lives he makes himself the sculpture on the steps. Playing games glinting with honorability to honorabilities sense of the absurd! Outside laugh- ing inside swift. At this feeling he is looking down on the lie and coils his strength for rising; there the eyebone showing a going on to feet. So he stands upon a mountain seeing the sea. The image knows he is stoned! A rock from height flying through the air is powerful, yet he waits within his watching, aware of the discussion in inner mind creating the enemy that prevents new worlds. It speaks which way? now that ego slips away toward shade, and its only life is slight- ness like weaved reeds to a breeze beneath solidness of trees. There are canyons wherein lie the low green forests No accomplishment in the Animal being wayfeared from it. "All mind out there, demanding to be so bright sets; my pattern is bunched into worlds whirling." There now his sense made its strength not so much from the speed sea, as he watched his being breathing life ideamated to the land! "I had always asked the ocean for reflection, but I knew it was bottomless" To ponder over water giving meaning to the finest of glass, but pulling back he became buried automatically beneath the grass; while with social structure's over- weenment he would purge its own plight upon him, try- ing to gain or lose an identity begins mistrustfully.

Original Scan

Page 17

AI Interpretation

GPT

This page pushes Animal toward a visionary threshold where Caribbean landscape, temple imagery, inner argument, and ocean reflection all become part of a struggle to break past the self.

The page moves from templed islands and sharpened sight into a drama of ego, ascent, and resistance. Animal stands between mountain, sea, canyons, and low green forests, trying to purge a social and inner plight without losing the identity that is already beginning mistrustfully.


Claude

Animal stands at a Caribbean temple threshold where the visible sea sharpens sight and the rock flying through air is both powerful and paralyzed by inner argument. The page names the manuscript's central obstacle — the ego that creates the enemy preventing new worlds — and dramatizes him looking down on the lie from a mountain.