SAM SAMPSON
All the Everlasting Cataracts
After John Keats' Hyperion
near at hand
rip-cords surround the centre
gurge of pulse
on / oft
to sometimes detect
actual remnants
to look up, and tell of this fractal shape
one gradual solitary star
which comes upon silence
...
fragments_______
that word startled up
filled in, in pencil
a transcript: the story dawned outlines
nerveless, script-less, dead-
ends felt in every feature
eyes closed: bowed head listening to the earth
to an ever-revolving spiel
...
trace : tracer
one of two great circles
intersection: right angles at poles
nadir: the low
zenith the high
circles and arcs
broad-belting colure
sages, keen-eyed astrologers
earth-bound evangelists
they study the sky
study the fault lines
(the god and sunrise)
both, and both in one
all along a dismal rack of clouds
upon the boundaries of day and night
a drifting mass
cloud
on
cloud
the sky in-
verse
...
nineteenth century
slow-breathed melodies,
like a rose in vermeil tint and shape
enter, but who entertains?
effigies, visions, extras ...
opaline forms
amorphous
: pictures of intimacy
all the everlasting cataracts
... pools
loops these crystalline pavilions
pure fields mantled by sea salt
...
re-cast the self
same beat
in hollow shells
in the cadence of time
where a dead branch fell, there did it rest...
reset to follow, to turn and lead the way
a stream went voiceless by (streamed)
mountainous: no shape extinguishable
when the bleak-gown pines
when winter lifts his voice, a noise
the mysterious grate of wind in trees
whether in calm or storm
(the same scene)
god of the sky : bookish séance
that old spirit-leaved book
sifted well ...from the ion-universe
...
flames yield like mist
all calm through chaos and darkness
from chaos and darkness
the extraordinary
the constant...the inter-
nal law and how
I
whether through conviction, or disdain
in this expressive line
quicken the patter of beads
(pearl beads drop-
ping from their string
ele-
mental nature
powerful similes
ponderous millstones)
...
appearance of strength
a deception masking real weakness
essence in its tent
before the winged thing
silver wings of dawn rising
now a silver line hints at this approach
in each face a glint of light
see how the light breaks in with this line
(haphazardly)
till suddenly a splendour
like rnorning
the horizon in noise
...
at the set of sun
light fades
first from the eastern sky
to one who travels from the dusking east
attributes of the wanderer
wondering in vain about
the inventor of god and music
of light and song
soft breaking noise
white melodious throat
a name signifies memory
would come as no mystery
pin-pricks of the world ... name-sakes
for me variance
by knowledge only
the above and the below
gathering all things mortal
this endless commencing
this still,
steady light
brilliance
of the moon O
independence
acknowledges no allegiance.
LISTEN to ‘All the Everlasting Cataracts’ by Sam Sampson
Sam Sampson's first book of poems, Everything Talks, was published in 2008 by Auckland University Press and Shearsman Books (UK). In 2009, it won the Jessie Mackay Best First Book Award for Poetry. In March 2012, he participated in a collaborative exhibition with collage artist Peter Madden at the Ivan Anthony Gallery, and in April 2012, published a collaborative bookwork ...exclusivity dwells in habitat with photographer Harvey Benge. In 2013, new poems will appear in Cordite Poetry Review and Shearsman magazine.
Sampson comments: ‘I recently came across a selection of Keats’s work (Poems Published in 1820) and was struck by the surface, or patterning of phrase and thought. A sense of how absolutely modern Keats could be, especially in the later unfinished epic poem “Hyperion” (1819).
‘I decided to remix “Hyperion”, and in the process extend the poem into my own stylistic territory by echoing Keats’s lines and including fragments from the poem’s annotations.
‘“All the Everlasting Cataracts” felt odd at first to construct (like participating in an archeological dig, juxtaposing antique diction, reversing links and lines) and unlike Keats (who had complained that “Hyperion” had been written under the influence of Milton) I was trying to retain as many Keatsian inversions and repetitions.’
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