Page 178

By Jack Joseph Smith

the tail for the pointed mind. Women look at what is thick and direct. They must; it is outside of them. He came to her, her husband, she moved away from him, and I hated His piano was so clear. Deapth without deapth. Agong in reaching. The undercurrent of a soul, remains an undercurrent. Stars fall, moons pass, but are chissums ever seen in their own image. My shoulders are wind and boney, and my face is drouping and fat. Lines are crawling. Only the slave can interpet them. I see them kicked on televison, would it be pretentious to say I feel the same in my own head. Maybe worse. I no not, I no not, not from where it come. Sometimes. Huray. He he. Can this be my only joy? Must I go back, to live? Nonsence; you are the presentation and the symbol of dreams. You are the adventure. You are the uneducated among those without the un. They never remember the before; the before birth. Kissed in a turbilent wind, the blackness that brought us together is never reconized. Lost in unturbulence, the mind remains lost. What is needed? Maybe misdirection. O God, is this where I am going? Yes, Danial, come back. No, he refuses. Do you all see this on my face? I am sorry you don't. What a great protectret I am. The carecture of myself resembles only myself, and I am remem bered only in dreams. Everything is cast out. Resembelence is the fantisy it belongs within, yet where is the where I feel there. Let all love leave me. Please. No strength left. But, O yes. It comes again in thoughts of laughter that crumble in those minutes awaking before a listened fault of futal warmpth. Reason is my killing song; and song I laugh with. Do I live my moments when they laugh; but of course I laughtwith ut them anyway. I am getting drunker, but the hot wind will satisfy my body in the afternoon, when I run it all out of me. Steaming with flesh, catching the silence in a raceyard, where I move alone.

Original Scan

Page 178

AI Interpretation

GPT

Chapter X closes in a dense drunken self-reading: Michael sees his face, body, laughter, dreams, and reason as distorted symbols, then imagines the hot wind and a raceyard where he can run everything out of himself alone.

The page makes the party's social theatre collapse into private self-laceration. Michael's misshapen language and repeated questions turn his face into a text he cannot fully interpret, while running appears as the only remaining purge.

Claude

The narrator watches the woman move away from her husband, hears 'His piano was so clear. Deapth without deapth', and turns on himself: his shoulders 'wind and boney', his face 'drouping and fat', his thoughts circling 'I no not, / I no not, not from where it come.' He calls 'Yes, Danial, come back' and is refused, then imagines the hot afternoon wind and a run in 'a raceyard, where I move alone.'

The page is a drunken self-portrait in which the body and face become signs he can barely read, and laughter and reason keep collapsing into each other ('Reason is my killing song'). The plea to 'Let all love leave me' and the final image of running alone suggest that physical exhaustion is the only relief he can imagine from this spiral.