Halcyon Ghosts Read online

  an expert trainer of acrobatic fleas

  he throws missiles and horse-chesnuts

  lined up on three sides of a square we continue in that role today

  7

  GROUND ZERO

  : the floor . . .

  see what happens after creating art

  from accidents and vandalism . . . show me a face worthy of love

  stencils of hands - mysterious ions, or shamanistic rituals . . .

  powers for a better life

  my aim is to improve this situation safeguard the local environment

  there is a string down the middle a loop at the base

  ..........distance unwinding ...

  a train running eastwards: four trains in each direction

  yesteryear the omnibus carried the byway

  time rents a moving truck

  on the horizon a cowboy props up his horse.

  The Tombstone Epitaph

  I

  a cowboy on his horse props up the horizon . . .

  fourteen hundred dollars and a faro layout were found in his room

  II

  the horizon on his horse a cowboy propped up

  The Epitaph gives an account of the killing (The Tucson Daily Citizen

  indorses the news) while no particulars are published the whole story is

  too well known to require repetition

  III

  propped up on the horizon a cowboy his horse

  ... headed for Albuquerque being pursued by an Arizona posse two

  desperadoes and five of their confederates arrive on the Atlantic & Pacific

  Express, the party are outlaws and fugitives from justice, without doubt

  the most desperate men now at large

  IV

  his horse on the horizon a cowboy pops up

  (while in town) the party’s presence is withheld by local

  papers described briefly in a letter: the complete text of the letter

  decontextualised . . . gamblers and saloon men are running things

  ... there is a general feud in and about Tombstone a continuous war

  between the two factions

  V

  props up on the horizon a cowboy his horse

  Virgil is the city marshal of Tombstone he holds the peace and quiet in the

  hollow of his hand . . . wounded he is now at his home in San Bernardino

  VI

  his horse up on a horizon the cowboy stops

  hardly a day in which a cocked revolver had not been levelled at someone

  (seven dead cowboys bearing witness to the accuracy of their aim) two

  lives taken for each one lost

  VII

  the cowboy stops his horse upon a horizon

  they have become a terror to the entire country, telegraphs from

  Tombstone . . . party departs leaving earlier than expected after an argument . . .

  VIII

  on a horizon his horse up pops the cowboy

  (it appears that in Tombstone a general feeling of regret was still very

  much alive: the quarrel referred to would be the same one mentioned in the

  letter)

  IX

  props the cowboy his horizon upon a horse

  inferentially words cannot express the regret felt - the unhappy result

  of triggernometry - the intended reparation will have to be deferred to a

  singular type of desperado, if a desperado at all

  X

  a horse upon his horizon a cowboy stops

  your true fighting man talks very little of his exploits, removed from the

  scene rioters and frontiersman in general they were men whose deeds

  became known among the rounders

  XI

  a cowboy stops his horizon up on the horse

  they left Arizona and came to Albuquerque (seven in all) they would not

  give themselves up, knowledge of their whereabouts would bring a posse

  of cowboy avengers down upon them

  XII

  on the horse a cowboy props up his horizon

  (the party disbanded) Tombstone supplied a posse of man-hunters who it

  appears this morning at last found their prey . . .

  XIII

  his horizon cropped the cowboy horse (once) upon a . . .

  P.S. Virgil Earp was not among the group that made its way to Albuquerque.

  The latest news from the quondam Albuquerqueans, the Earp crowd, is that

  Wyatt, Warren and Virgil Earp are in San Francisco, engaged in dealing faro.

  Texas Jack is in Colorado, Doc Holliday in Leadville, McMasters and Johnson

  in Mexico, and Tipton in the Gunnison country.

  Unearthed Vestiges

  Flashlight on a broken column

  six linked inscriptions

  unearthed vestiges

  youthful vigour, rickshaws haul-

  ing yesterday’s diffusion

  the rhythms of conversation

  familiar hills : topography . . .

  worn apart by rapid repetition

  wheels pulling outer sparks in-

  wards . . .

  to be turned about completely

  having uncovered a serious flaw

  building sentences: set of fields woven together . . . across : cross-

  stitched, a little bit tighter around outskirts

  connecting a small revolutionary component

  mark it strengthen it (in other regions)

  stick it:

  interplay between

  icono-

  stases

  ____________________

  surface, fresh battle grounds mix

  shell-game urgency

  just allow them to fidget

  occidental disturbances will affect sustainability

  wayward we expect this to be a decisive test

  a sizeable difference in arrival times

  illusions creating a sacred place

  craters . . . clusters, circling further out

  bottom-line excavations

  _______________

  sectionals

  a tiny fraction of a second

  tell-tale footprints : time’s unseen ghosts

  this year will plug generalities

  sensitive enough

  to produce a flash of light . . . élan

  what will slip through unseen . . .?

  constellation as gear to the swarm

  we need both approaches: this is not the same story

  surveying the whole sky once every few days

  twice building an unprecedented picture of perspective

  reverence, I think . . . heightened readings

  there could be a sting in this tale,

  myriad faint, or invisible celestial circuitry.

  She is Sparrow-like and Fierce

  I’ll tie myself to her voice

  scene pulled from frame to frayed edge

  knot-to-knot . . . to pull backwards that tapestry of dress

  (yes, the pattern returns triumphant)

  crux of the matter, to go on . . . wistfully

  could not she?

  of course life-lines feeding the concrete

  clear-cut she is sparrow-like and fierce,

  thin . . . angular, with the hollow-eyed look

  she could reach people with her mimicry

  a little melancholic roust

  an elegiac circus and under this whirling

  her manic joy . . . streaming in and out-of-breath.

  for my mother, a whirling dervish on her 60th birthday

  My leaves have drifted from me. All. But one clings still. I’ll bear

  it on me. To remind me of. Lff! So soft this morning, ours. Yes.

  Carry me along, taddy, like you done through the toy fair!

  — James Joyce, Finnegans Wake

  Six Reels of Joy

  ... as shadow a light and body

  in the pres
ent tense . . . a quint-

  essence

  a paly of six argent and azure

  a cinquefoil gules in the centre of a sun

  (names displaced by light

  are dark but not lost . . .

  ) . . . Miss Lucia

  2

  in my headiness

  light against the Earth’s axial tilt

  against the axes of both bodies

  (glass) bodies

  of alphabetical bones

  one

  by one, scattered frames . . . the low off-

  shore islands . . . over-

  lapping scraps of the water’s reflection

  3

  re-verse soundings :

  mirror images

  of mother father

  da & ma

  the nature of divination

  between saint and certitude

  to within a second . . . scenarios

  like the sunrise centred and sunset rendered

  (or vice versa)

  4

  Zeroth Zohar Zygote

  tracking . . . shadow this, take and come up

  shadow, come to the present . . . the sur-

  face . . . the Lion the Light the Luminous

  5

  August

  heart

  head

  helix

  DNA X

  tracing

  Y

  (past Adam’s Peak and Zion Track, from swerve of-shore to bend of-bay

  to Z of-land . . . Zzzzzzz . . . sunrise . . . a-

  wake, Lucia re-

  sprung in us by carnal equinox) A - Z

  6

  : dialectical

  the pull and push

  part and parcel . . . the abstract un-

  folding lucid

  the birth, the human, the light

  THE HUMAN-LIGHT

  flowing out and through us

  this

  is flesh

  daughter

  a likeness (chorus)

  of that unknown rushing

  (through

  us)))))))))))))))))

  the pulse trace

  elements

  arc-

  ing

  through

  us

  luna . . . (lady) leo (baby) . . .

  lupus (gypsy) . . . lux-

  Lucia.

  for my daughter

  Notes

  The epigraph on the dedication page is from Samuel Beckett, Worstward Ho (London: John Calder, 1983), p. 13.

  ‘Halcyon Ghosts’ builds its form from Harvey Benge’s bookwork Birds. The photographs were taken from the deck of a Devonport ferry as it headed into Auckland Harbour on the afternoon of Thursday, 15 July 2010. The first epigraph is from Michael Palmer’s Thread (New York: New Directions, 2011), p. 90; many thanks to Michael Palmer for permission to use this text.

  The second epigraph is from John Cage, ‘Lecture on Commitment’ (1961), in A Year from Monday (Middletown, CT: Wesleyan University Press, 1967), p. 119.

  ‘Erasure’ is dedicated to Don Binney (1940-2012), an artist and conservationist best known for his paintings of birds. Geoff Moon (1915- 2009), naturalist and exceptional bird photographer, is also an inspiration for this piece.

  ‘Flushed from a Tidal Retreat’ has its origins in the oldest unequivocal document of origami, a short poem composed by Ihara Saikaku in 1680. It is dedicated to my father, Colin John Sampson (1944-2014).

  ‘All the Everlasting Cataracts’ is a line from Keats’s ‘Hyperion’ (1819).

  ‘I Spilled My Story’ was part of the collaborative exhibition You Have Changed Me Already (with artist Peter Madden) at the Ivan Anthony Gallery, March 2012, Auckland.

  ‘Broken Architecture’ is dedicated to poet C. K. Stead. After reading ‘Broken Architecture’ Karl replied in kind, with the poem ‘Back then (but briefly)’ (The Yellow Buoy, Auckland University Press, 2013, p. 69), which he says ‘strangely turned out to be “about” visiting the grave of Dylan Thomas in 1957’.

  ‘The Tombstone Epitaph’ uses excerpts from articles and newspaper clippings collected at BlongerBros.com. The title is taken from the Arizona-based monthly publication (est. 1880) - the oldest continually running newspaper in Arizona.

  Halcyon Ghosts recycles source material from writers: Rae Armantrout, Samuel Beckett, John Cage, Peter Cole, John Donne, T. S. Eliot, Barbara Guest, James Joyce, John Keats, Michael Palmer, Gustaf Sobin, Wallace Stevens, Dylan Thomas and Louis Zukofsky.

  For more information on the author and associated collaborations, please visit: www.samsampson.co.nz

  •

  Many of these poems appeared, sometimes in a slightly different form, in: Best New Zealand Poems 2012, Cordite Poetry Review, JAAM, Turbine and Shearsman Magazine.

  Broken Architecture / Salt Away (2010), with Andrew Grace, a selection of poems, was published as part of the Duets chapbook series, which pairs poets from New Zealand and the United States.

  ... exclusivity dwells in habitat (FAQEDITIONS: 2012) was published as a collaborative bookwork with photographer Harvey Benge.

  Thanks to the team at Auckland University Press, especially; Anna Hodge, Katrina Duncan, Sam Elworthy and Christine O’Brien who have been a pleasure to work with.

  And love as always to Jacinda, whose extraordinary support made this book possible; and Lucia, our daughter, who twists and turns throughout this collection . . . of time past and time future . . .

  Sam Sampson was born in Auckland, New Zealand, and grew up in Titirangi. His poetry has been widely published in journals and chapbooks, and his first collection with Auckland University Press, Everything Talks, won the NZSA Jessie Mackay Best First Book Award for Poetry at the 2009 book awards.

  First published 2014

  Auckland University Press

  University of Auckland

  Private Bag 92019

  Auckland 1142

  New Zealand

  www.press.auckland.ac.nz

  © Sam Sampson, 2014

  eISBN 978 1 77558 738 5

  A catalogue record for this book is available from the National Library of New Zealand

  This book is copyright. Apart from fair dealing for the purpose of private study, research, criticism or review, as permitted under the Copyright Act, no part may be reproduced by any process without prior permission of the publisher. The moral rights of the author have been asserted.

  Author photograph: Josh Hetherington

  Cover image: decomposed nitrate film clipping from the Turconi Collection, Moving Image Department, George Eastman House, International Museum of Photography and Film

  Cover design: Jacinda Torrance, Verso Visual