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While I Was Away

By Andrew Joron
Poetry•Vol. XXX No. 3 (Winter 2017)

A where the water of
what was was
what was was—

Aware, the whiter of
is & is
no easy zone.

Attained
to black, be lack—
Be
Turn-all, eternal.

A spot coincident to
speed & stillness—style.

A cause coincident to dance.

Not
What cut what caught
did knot.

O were the
Knower now here!
—to await the unexpected
Pax of excess—

Yes yes yes.

Andrew Joron
Andrew Joron is the author of The Absolute Letter, a collection of poems published by Flood Editions (2017). Joron’s previous poetry collections include Trance Archive: New and Selected Poems (City Lights 2010), The Removes (Hard Press 1999), Fathom (Black Square Editions 2003) and The Sound Mirror (Flood Editions 2008). The Cry at Zero, a selection of his prose poems and critical essays, was published by Counterpath Press in 2007. Joron teaches creative writing at San Francisco State University.

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