Nancy

By Jack Joseph Smith

You are tragic and you know it You have thrown yourself into a jungle It is deep enough so that you do believe that you won't ever get out It is as if all that has occurred in life up till now must be justified And all that has occurred has lead you to this place where complete tragedy must be fulllfilled You are the Earth of Not from misunderstanding For certainly I realize your direct intentions But the word transcendance has never been felt And for it to be with you is the fear you speak of Don't let anyone approaching the abstract tunnel sound (Meaning voices) Tell you different than the devil and god are the same In that they fear no decision because of visions of success or failure In cosmic ways those words are but symbols to illistrate the coming together of beginning and ending or ending and beginning And that feeling is enough for the tumbling foot of the devil or the absurd heart throb of god to begin to do it again at the next place, The reason why god does not fear the devil is because he knows that the devil does not fear love The devil is enraptured While human beings are a lot more timid toward hell, than real with his eyes In this case our teaching is turned around to a position where god watches our reactive dealings with this power Which through his devil knowledge gives humanity the possibility of being devine.

Original Scan

Page 12

AI Interpretation

GPT

A tragic address that treats despair as both emotional condition and metaphysical error, arguing against surrender to catastrophe.

The speaker challenges Nancy's expectation of tragedy through a private theology of love, god and the devil. The current reading ends with humanity's possibility of being divine. The crossed handwritten coda remains outside the work body; the page notes preserve it as a cancelled revision.

Claude

'Nancy' warns its addressee 'You are tragic and you know it / You have thrown yourself into a jungle', then argues that 'the devil and god are the same / In that they fear no decision' and ends on 'the possibility of being devine.'

A love-warning turns into a private theology in which god and the devil become 'symbols to illistrate / the coming together of beginning and ending'. The tone is urgent and earnest. On the source page a handwritten coda about fearing sorrow for the universe is crossed out with a large X, so the typed argument is the poem's standing form.