Page 15

By Jack Joseph Smith

Jonny Jonney CUNARD LINES Johnny Port au Prince Haiti yachat It was on the Caribbean, where fined glass for noon ashore drinks cast out a crystal across the somewhereness of eloquent European waiters hands. While within the ship the lower deck tucks tightly away its Merchant Englishmen. Look they swing viewed up from their duties and sluming ladies. Round coined silver has turned out dipping And around down on breeze through the air. The silver piece was tossed from the ships balcony in riff, by the deathly white blotched lady, who has cancer obviously horrid on the worst of all pancaked faces, and her perfect and favorate skin has bottom drift brought the coin up from just about to the shimmering clear turquoise surface in firmly native snapped white teeth. This place of past pirate sea. From the Labyrinth and the Lost; Fact does not accompany the deep, or the gone. And now we were docked in the Haiti Harbor of Port au Prince.

Original Scan

AI Interpretation

GPT

The speaker recalls a Caribbean ship, European waiters, Merchant Englishmen, and a woman tossing a silver coin into turquoise water. The speaker describes her cancer and closes by naming the harbor at Port au Prince.

The speaker describes the coin, water, and woman's skin before commenting that fact does not accompany the deep or the gone. The top annotations remain incomplete, so they do not establish a person's full name.

Claude

Under name practice at the top ('Jonny', 'Jonney', 'Johnny') and notes 'CUNARD LINES', 'Port au Prince', 'Haiti', 'yachat', a typed and hand-revised prose passage describes a ship on the Caribbean where 'eloquent European waiters' serve and a 'deathly white blotched / lady, who has cancer' tosses a silver piece from 'the ships balcony in riff' for a diver who brings it up 'in firmly native snapped white / teeth'. Handwritten lines close it: 'From the Labyrinth and the Lost; / Fact does not accompany the deep, / or the gone. / And now we were docked in the Haiti / Harbor of Port au Prince.'

The page sets luxury against decay and service: the glittering 'crystal across the somewhereness' is framed by a sick passenger's 'pancaked' face and a native diver's teeth. The handwritten ending turns the scene into reflection, saying the 'past pirate sea' keeps what fact cannot reach, then drops back to the plain arrival at port. The heavy revisions and the practised name spellings show a draft still being shaped.