‘Hostage in Peking’ Sonnet circa 1968 ‘A Vacuum of Hell’

In July 1967, journalist Anthony Grey was imprisoned by the Chinese People’s government for 27 months of solitary confinement endured in the basement of his house whose exterior was daubed with anti-imperialist taunts by the Red Guard. 

 

It was his ‘vacuum of hell’, a torment magnified when he was forbidden possession of his books . . . until he discovered an instruction leaflet in his bathroom cabinet attached by ‘an elastic band round a bottle of T.C.P. [trichlorophenylmethyliodosalicyl] liquid antiseptic  . . . I eagerly absorbed the literary elegance of such phrases as: “Influenza, as a precautionary measure during epidemics, use night and morning as for colds.” And “Mouthwash: use daily diluted with about five parts water after meals.” And “Chilblains, aching feet, athletes foot: freely apply undiluted.” ’

 

Had this discovery been for Grey a sort of Damascene moment, one speculates, an encounter with his lost Rosetta Stone preserved in the bathroom cabinet, so long deprived of such emollient wording in his own cherished tongue, the language of Shakespeare? 

And, therefore, at such a moment in his ‘Forsaken Place’*, did he subconsciously attempt to deconstruct the paucity of those T.C.P. instructions – savouring each phrase in iambic pentameter – to contrive a testament to his hard wrought defiance in our time-honoured Shakespearean Measure? 

 

Did he pummel some sort of sense into those inoffensive words? I rather suspect he did.

 

                    January’s a danger month, Mother,

                    particularly when its germ toxins
                    take hold, with forty-four hurts deep in the
                    membranes of strict preventative routines

                    night and morning, so no foreign body

                    might escape into the system or leave 

                    a feverishness to see multiply 

                    the severe dampness of one’s handkerchief.

                    So extra help is needed that counteracts

                    threats of dirt-embedded skin necrosis

                    or incubated unwanted side effects. 

                    Let Nature ease discomfort . . . if you start this

                    extra internal action early enough

                    you’ll have a real chance of throwing it off.

 

*For further reflections on ‘Lazarine Literature’ and ‘The Forsaken Place’ see:

https://catherineeisnerfrance.blogspot.com/2013/11/thought-police-message-from-secret.html