Page 5
By Jack Joseph Smith
By Jack Joseph Smith
Original Scan
AI Interpretation
Seeing Jonny Caucauous on an Alaskan street recalls travel, a robbery near Vancover, shared food and jails. A hesitant approach to the figure ends with ghosts, going back and the words from Alaska.
Clothing and swagger allow recognition before the speaker moves behind lost sight and describes a touch. The handwritten parenthetical going back connects the street scene with the wish to make wandering happen again. It does not name a southward destination.
Titled 'Being cautious', the page opens 'I thought I saw Jonny Caucauous / On the 4th street of Anchorge, Alaska' and recalls a robbed whore house 'near Vancover', 'penutbutter' eaten from 'a sharred jar' and running 'down the coast'. The speaker follows the swaggering figure, revises the encounter to 'i touched (not on the shoulder', shrinks from seeing 'his / (face)', and closes with a pencil note '(which means / going back) / from Alaska'.
The typed draft moves through memory by loose association, from beer and jails to clothes and attire, before returning to the street sighting. The handwritten changes to the title, the touch and the coda show the author reconsidering both caution and contact, and the last lines tie wandering to wanting 'greatest ghosts' again.