four poems

Andrew Joron

POOR SYLLOGISM

Nature reads us

—one twist of pure agony, then gone.

Effect of a line crossed by another line.

Nothing follows.

NARRATIVE VOICE

He, the hero

Bent to enter

the inhuman room.

Perception poured sideways, he could not master it.

Let it be a collective

To present anew

the represented.

When we fall, we fall

toward a center

In constant choir

—our close too close to see.

Any word in quotes

Is understood to be a residue

Of unstated systems.

He’s we, without question.

LIT

Little did I

Know—word of refusal—

word helping

other words to

talk about the whether—

A way, away, to know.

*

The arc of a circle, magnified, gets

Messy fast.

Re-

Verse, zoom out

to zero, refer-

ring to ring

after ring.

O to sing of all who missing are!

Earth’s orbit, no—

Earth’s obit

Announced to eye-lit heaven.

NIXED WHY

Heat, any heat, encourages encounters.

Are you listening, atoms?

Glistening will do.

As out of scatter comes

a skater

Or a kite without skies, We

is motivated by reason, We

is calling, cooling to

that One

That collects an unlikely cloud, a final face.