Untitled ("I'm a dishwasher, a man against ink,")

By Jack Joseph Smith

I'm a dishwasher, a man against ink, To touch money or newspapers is obt. for a less likely place to think As children and saints live in the bold A middle Eastern man crossed with Diego Thinning the white man's fear to stay! always the black man's fear to go, fashion and fighting got him laid Drugs don't count as carriages on Earth Even space says go and do your best And no saying yes to limelight or hurt So it appears that he never ment sir when he said it To good to be taken to the yardham, yet so much of the yoke

Original Scan

AI Interpretation

GPT

A dishwasher calls himself a man against ink and puts money and newspapers beside a less likely place to think. Children, saints, a Middle Eastern man crossed with Diego, racial fears, drugs, and refusal of sir lead to yardham and yoke.

The opening links work and difficulty thinking without explaining obt. The later references to fear, sex, drugs, and address widen the portrait; the wording does not establish a doctrine of contamination or the speaker's biography.

Claude

The poem opens in first person, 'I'm a dishwasher, a man against ink,' and portrays 'A middle Eastern man crossed with Diego' who is 'Thinning the white man's fear to stay!' while 'fashion and fighting got him laid'. It closes with 'So it appears that he never ment sir when he said it' and 'To good to be taken to the yardham, yet so much of the yoke'.

The poem is a tighter, rhyming variant of the neighboring VI draft, reusing its saints, racial fears, drugs and yoke in three four-line stanzas and a single closing line. The dishwasher's voice makes the portrait working-class and wry, and source spellings such as obt., ment, To good and yardham keep its rough edges.