actual possession of the world
left Gu Cheng exposed maimed and handicapped
this shining road back to the city
into his own shattered emptiness finally I listened to the sounds like leaves or any other violence of the picture
there is something in their lives that keeps them following this sound
on the other side I could go anywhere
recall a life that is distant from our own
but this doesn’t trouble me because I didn’t use words
he constantly tried to return
following this phrase became the picture once I thought I felt that a new young light had awoken in the woman
all softly speaking in a particular kind of way
one of the world’s unceasing infinity of transformations
the violation of corporal integrity is in the wind
they were flooded with both their lives
they were flooded with the body and my ears went deaf
became fraught and fell ill and she asked me what colour
a truly extraordinary sound
the speech of the cascading rays
I didn’t write poetry I didn’t use words, he claimed
taken from the world he had left long ago into his own shattered emptiness
living into this world
both created and enforced
to imagine such hatred I awoke I answered we keep on living I began to think of endless transformation
and in gesture like a secret afterwards I began to think of these phrases
they really were flying closer and they turned into words
dawn was the summit and night was speaking
for reasons that were flying closer
suddenly the sounds poured endlessly into my life because I didn’t use words
taken from the world both created and enforced
I began to think of whiteness
this shining road back to the surface of the final sound
[* Lines gleaned by John Cayley at average collocational strictness
386/500 from Cayley’s Leaving the City,
based, in turn on Gu Cheng’s ‘The sounds I hear / the sounds I make while
waiting for death’ and a prose piece by Cayley on Gu Cheng’s
murder of his wife and his own suicide, 8 Oct 1993.]