.

HellWard Canto 1: Hospital

—lines 1-92

It had to be—that long descent began:
About me images, one century
That started, stuttered, showed how poor is man

In all things except his savagery.
My grandfather’s face, first in that stale line,
Who missed the trenches through admin’s mystery;

Was sent instead to fight in Palestine,
While friends he’d known all died in No-Man’s-Land.
How lucky, then, for him; for me a sign:

Despite the misery, unintended, unplanned
That characterised the fools who sought to build
A better world—progress—to make a stand,

As it were; as if politics could field
A force sufficient to overcome gods
Whose power, agencies were not like to yield

To mortal die, its throes and sadder odds.
Or, as if science, too, could weight outcomes—
Build Babels better far than Nimrod did.

Yet for all that building, they built one tomb
Called planet Earth—polluted, warmed and dying,
Neglecting the while to study, exhume

The corpse of what the century was frying.
That long descent began. I saw myself as heir;
I saw myself for poetry is scrying—

Calliope come to me now, be here,
For I must tell how I came to that wild place
Where death is our doctrine, and twin despair.

For all this, know—each human hides that face
Divine, which is our task, within our will,
To reveal at last, if so by God’s grace,

That Love that Dante saw created hell,
And by His goodness covered Earth with stars,
So many, no mind could count them, they fill

The cosmos, yet hang so near us, yet far;
Our destiny, one day, perhaps, to cross
Over to where mortality can’t mar,

Cast shadows, that prolong and deepen loss.
Calliope come now to me, epic queen:
Without inspiration, writing is dross;

Enable me to see what’s not been seen
Before, but rise heroic to this quest
And find the Grail: what does this century mean?

And in so doing also find true rest—
The ninth heaven where Dante found himself,
Surprised and speechless, all light and all blest,

All one, yet being not somebody else:
Himself full-on, even as one snowflake
In dawn’s deep drift, unique whilst still engulfed.

Calliope, Apollo’s daughter, make
Me prophesy: you know what’s to be,
You know the golden god and how he breaks

The proud. I came myself near history,
Despite a false summer then broken out,
Collapsing quite incomprehensibly.

Something medics came to see in my gut,
Something small, some shadow, should not be there,
But they’d remove—a snip—at most a cut

And I’d be well; there my life would be clear.
I waited hospitalised without sun,
No moon either, nothing natural, dear—

Gone without trace, as I went down, down, down:
One held my hand as anaesthetics did
Their graft—what was to do would soon be done;

And that malignancy within, well hid,
That choked, snake-like, intestinal flesh,
Would be revealed at last and I’d be rid

Of cancer’s bloated presence and its wish:
Destruction absolute, assured, aligned—
Refusing life, wanting in death to mesh

With me, an apt image of evil’s mind,
Small gains to build one vaulting emptiness,
At last undo what so much love designed.

What much love designed? And too was blessed?
Such sacredness I scarce can speak of—how
Before God now I tremble, quake, am less –

His glory. I saw it, as dying, slow,
Gutted of guts and lying on the bed,
Out of my body, sight soared to space, so

Effortlessly, and there I saw, ahead,
One giant finger turning candyfloss.
Wondering what—? I willed myself and sped

To see. There, close-up, I saw not chaos,
But its just opposite: not sugar wound
Around a finger, for which some child might fuss,

But a star formed in deep space, without sound,
No fanfare, tranquil; and the index bent,
One flick, it revelled forward on its round.

How could such power be—the whole cosmos rent
Into parts and each part on its own work,
And better still, each atom purposeful, sent

Whilst far below on a bed, injured, hurt,
Powerless to do evil, much less good,
I lay helpless, fit soon to be but dirt?

.

Poet’s Note

The original edition of HellWard had no explanatory notes to help the reader; but StairWell did, and these were widely welcomed. As one American reader said, paraphrasing, ‘I get the sense of what is being said, but I love being able to follow up on some obscurity—to me—that the poet then explicates.’ In these circumstances, then, it seemed advisable to add Notes to the HellWard edition. So, the new HellWard Revisited is doing precisely that. The new edition is also in hardback, contains new original artwork by Judy Warbey, a new cover, has been corrected and so on. It was released on 10-31-24: Halloween! Here, then, is the very opening of the epic and the notes as they are found in the new edition. For more information on this go to: https://englishcantos.home.blog/letters-from-hell/.

l. 5. My grandfather’s face. On the maternal side, Joseph St John Santry (1898–1976). He fought in Palestine during World War I, thus missing the trenches in France and ‘No-Man’s-Land’.
l. 16. mortal die. The double sense of dying, and ‘die’ as singular of dice.
l. 25. Calliope. The leader of the Nine Muses, goddess of epic poetry, and daughter of Apollo.
ll. 28–9. each human hides that face / Divine. An allusion to Milton (Paradise Lost, Book III, l. 44) and Blake (‘The Tyger’).
l. 31. That Love that Dante saw created hell. The burden of Dante’s Inferno, and The Divine Comedy more broadly, which this work aspires to emulate.
l. 42. And find the Grail. Writing this epic poem is like questing for the Holy Grail in Arthurian legend. It is a religious enterprise as much as an artistic one.
l. 45. Surprised and speechless. As Dante found, the paradox of achieving the vision is to find oneself—the poet finds himself—speechless, because words fail. In the final canto of Paradiso, Dante wrote: ‘At this point power failed high fantasy…’ (Par. XXXIII.142, trans. Mark Musa).
l. 56. a snip. The poet-pilgrim was told that the tests seemed to reveal nothing more than a small shadow in his small intestine, which a ‘snip’ would remove. Coming out of the first five-hour operation, he learnt that he had two malignant sarcomas, known as ‘fibromatoses’. One was the size of a grapefruit, the other an avocado.
l. 61. One held my hand. He shall always be grateful to the surgeon, Chrissie Laban, who was a stalwart in helping his recovery.
l. 75. I saw it. After two major operations, he was on Nil By Mouth for 29 days and had lost nearly five stone in weight; at this point, he had an out of the body experience and God ‘touched’ him.

.

.

James Sale has had over 50 books published, most recently, “Mapping Motivation for Top Performing Teams” (Routledge, 2021). He has been nominated by The Hong Kong Review for the 2022 Pushcart Prize for poetry, has won first prize in The Society of Classical Poets 2017 annual competition, and performed in New York in 2019. He is a regular contributor to The Epoch Times. His most recent poetry collection is “StairWell.” For more information about the author, and about his Dante project, visit https://englishcantos.home.blog. To subscribe to his brief, free and monthly poetry newsletter, contact him at [email protected]

NOTE TO READERS: If you enjoyed this poem or other content, please consider making a donation to the Society of Classical Poets.

The Society of Classical Poets does not endorse any views expressed in individual poems or commentary.


Trending now:

15 Responses

  1. Roy Eugene Peterson

    You certainly successfully emulated Dante with concept, word, and imagery. Furthermore, you more than quested for the Holy Grail! You found it! Finding God and love combined with the skill both of the Master’s hand and the surgeon accomplished that. I have rarely read a poem as perfectly synchronized as this on in which I clipped mellifluously along from verse to verse in anticipation of the next. How great was your rhyme and rhyme scheme that tumbled in my head deliciously as I read it to myself. All I can say is this is a great poem for the ages and for the aged who may be faced with similar medical circumstances.

    Reply
    • James Sale

      Great Roy – thank you. Mellifluous is a lovely word which is onomatopoeically mellifluous itself! To go to heaven we first have to begin the descent downwards and to believe that we can make the journey back and out of Hell. I am excited by the thought that you – who have supported my journey here – are soon going to be able to read my DoorWay and in Canto 9, ‘Arriving in Aquarius’, and find about my final vision in heaven. This is not the end point but you might like – since bees are mentioned – this small extract:

      …One hand, but dextrous, from out His sleeve’s shop

      Produced a stone, all glowing white, but crisp
      As wafers in communion are. I saw
      Engraved upon its form, so faint, like wisps

      Of smoke, such letters as made reading sore;
      So tiny – straining eyes to see, I strained,
      And as I did, so locked in more and more

      Myself – for what I saw, I saw my name!
      The name of everlasting life; it rhymed
      With bee, and yet for that was not the same

      At all, though perfect in its honeyed chime;
      I could not here pronounce its sound – instead,
      I swallowed and tasted … the end of time…

      Thanks for commenting during the Election – heroic!

      Reply
  2. Susan Jarvis Bryant

    Rich, multilayered poetry that absorbs every thinking fibre of my being and makes me yearn to learn more about the creative process of poetry and the human condition. James – I am a fan!

    Reply
    • James Sale

      Thanks Susan – appreciate this – and realise that my next great task is to turn you into a ‘super-fan’. I shall endeavour to do so!

      Reply
  4. Joseph S. Salemi

    After reading this selection and the appended notes, I’ve just ordered my hard copy of the book.

    There is no question at all that James Sale will go down in literary history as a resuscitator of the epic genre.

    Reply
    • James Sale

      Well Joe – to buy the book means you are a superfan! Thank you so much and I am really pleased you like it so much. Your choice of word, resuscitator, is interesting: hopefully, one is breathing life into this genre. I am sure you will have read Herbert F Tucker’s book, Epic: tracing epics in England from 1790-1912. What is staggering is the sheer number of them – many more than I knew of or even thought possible – and such a number that have fallen into oblivion. Many a fine thing does, but as long as poets have champions, then the chances are enhanced that something valuable survives into posterity. Thanks again – I shall doubtless quote you soon!

      Reply
  5. Brian A. Yapko

    James, I think this may well be the most moving excerpt from your epic that I have read yet. I actually have tears in my eyes. You make life and death such a tangible reality and the physiological blight of cancer presented with theological depth. I feel like I want to give the poet a hug here.

    My favorite lines present God’s love with associatons of how Man perceives the Cosmos:

    ‘God’s grace,
    That Love that Dante saw created hell,
    And by His goodness covered Earth with stars,
    So many, no mind could count them, they fill
    The cosmos, yet hang so near us, yet far…”

    And it keeps on going with gorgeous images and profound insights. This passage may well move me because it strikes me as the most intimate in an epic filled with personal disclosures. I’m so impressed both with your skill and your bravery. Well done.

    Reply
    • Brian A. Yapko

      By “passage” in that last paragraph, I mean the excerpt as a whole.

      Reply
    • James Sale

      My dear Brian – when we finally get to meet, as I am sure we will – we can have that hug!!! I am pleased you like the ‘entrance’ to my epic so much, and I make so bold as to say, I think you will find the ending (DoorWay, Canto 9) equally compelling, for the question that haunted me – till the Muse granted me the vision – was: how do you ‘see’ the Ultimate Reality and then end the poem? When I wrote the lines above that you like so much, I had no idea! We are blinded by this world, till the One leads us into that marvellous light.

      Reply
  6. ABB

    I’ve read these opening lines a number of times, and they always get me. An extraordinary accident, or bit of destiny, about your grandfather. I myself am here because an ancestor miraculously survived the Johnstown Flood and started a new family after his old family drowned.
    Nice to see the footnotes, and exciting about the artwork inside!

    Reply
    • James Sale

      Thanks for your comments Andrew. Yes, it would seem that any of us being here is based on a series of improbable events that are as unlikely as a million monkeys typing non-stop for a million years and producing the works of Shakespeare!

      Reply
  7. Shari LeKane

    Thank you, James, for a brilliant expose of existential angst in Terza Rima form! I am reminded of the post war era and the silent generation in this work, and the eternal question whether it all mattered, and what really matters.

    Reply
    • James Sale

      Thanks Shari – apologies for delay in replying – but yes, I am always astounded how this silent generation got on with things – like fighting in or enduring a war. My grandfather barely ever spoke about his experiences in WW1 – you think of today’s generation and they have a headache and they either have to tell the world about their suffering or need counselling!

      Reply

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published.

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.