Shearsman 58: Trevor Joyce: 4 Poems from the Chinese of Ruan Ji (1)

Shearsman 58

Trevor Joyce

Two Poems from the Chinese of Ruan Ji

24

Deep grief
    constrains
        the will;
long pain
    is this continuing
        fear.

Does pleasure
    take?
        Sun
plunges
    down
        the west.

Crickets
    wither
        at the sill;
brief cicadas
    cry
        in the yard.

When heart
    and mind
        conflict,
who can
    discern
        true inclination?

Distant,
    a bird
        among the clouds,
I would
    shriek
        once.

Alexipharms for death
    flourish
        in paradise;
long flight
    there brings
        long life.

50

Dew stiffens
    into frost,
grass frays
    to husk.

What moral
    there?
What truth
    survives?

Bestride
    the stratosphere,
hold incorruptibles
    for intimates;

take pause
    unceasingly
        for breath.

Trevor Joyce lives in Cork, Ireland. The second edition of his Collected Poems, titled with the first dream of fire they hunt the cold, was published by Shearsman Books in the UK and USA, and by New Writer's Press in Ireland in November 2003. Two chapbooks, Take Over and Undone Say have also recently been published by The Gig in Toronto. He was awarded a Fulbright scholarship in 2002-3, and in 2004 was elected a member of Aosdána (akin to the Académie Française, but restricted to creative artists).