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By Jack Joseph Smith

Before Final Things Begin To Break Clean on the glass with its wax the candle sticks, there, caught is your vision so simple, or as well this look with THE FLAME goes the other way Crushed as terror, or happy as released All be the same say the Budist, when God is Thought without language, rather than the reverse of a dream While only flesh I suppose, is not nonsense Yes, and to be the sea, is deeper than an interest Through all it over again, to look down before THE mountains of another first climb, NEVER in REACH to HEIST THE SKIES you must climb up still though certain for punishment; reguardless of appearance, or any arrangement for death I have seen myself walk two ways at the same time, and I have felt salt in strips sing me away, when longing wants to whip me back to where I don't belong When it all begins, let the lesson know, when it ends, it has little to do with you

Original Scan

AI Interpretation

GPT

The speaker considers candlelight, terror, release, thought without language, and the wish to become the sea. A handwritten climbing phrase accompanies mountains and punishment before the speaker describes longing for a place where they do not belong.

The speaker seeks distance from longing while still feeling salt and flesh. The close grants the listener little control over the ending of a lesson. The recovered climbing phrase adds an unreachable sky, but its unsettled attachment prevents a fixed account of how the climb relates to punishment.

Claude

'Before Final Things Begin To Break' begins 'Clean on the glass with its wax the candle sticks,' and reflects that 'All be the same say the Budist, / when God is Thought without language,'. It holds that 'to be the sea, is deeper than an interest', adds a handwritten 'first climb, NEVER in REACH to HEIST / THE SKIES', and ends 'When it all begins, let the lesson know, / when it ends, it has little to do with you'.

The poem weighs spiritual detachment against bodily longing, as in 'longing wants to whip me back to where I don't belong'. It is one of several versions of the 'Final Things' poem in the collection. The handwritten climbing phrase sits between lines without an insertion mark, so its intended place is uncertain.