Sunday, January 28, 2018

Ephram Pratt Poems By Jack e Lorts

A retired educator, Jack e Lorts lives in a small community in Eastern Oregon. His “Ephram Pratt” poems have appeared widely online in such places as Haggard and Halloo, Literary Juice, Elohi Gadugi, Locust and elsewhere. His most recent chapbook is “Dear Gilbert Sorrentino & Other Poems” from Finishing Line Press.

Ephram Pratt Unties the Umbilical Cord of Silence


No longer does
he know the answers


he knew in earlier times,
in the time


of spotted lizards
on the horizon,


during the days
of warfare


in the jungles of Ceylon.
His life crosses


slowly into the shadows
of a silence


heard only
by the trees


clustered about his feet,
reigning in the


wilderness of nightfall,
in the rooms


classified as winsome
and kept tied together


by an umbilical cord
of dark velvet.



          Ephram Pratt Entertains a Night of Glass


Philodendrons asleep
on the counter top,


rising & falling
like miniature elves


in a game of chess,
chasing small


imaginary creatures
into the silence


of a thousand illuminations.
Let the effects


of lantern windows
enlighten the caves


and closets
of shoulder length shadows,


standing dormant
in an invisible orchard of glass,


like broken totems
falling from the sky


filling a diorama
of ill begotten votaries. 



Ephram Pratt Enters a Vapidity of Evil


                                                            Inured of a vapidity
                                                            lining the side streets
           
                                                            of a divine abyss,
                                                            the Ambassador to Valhalla


                                                            counts the limbs
                                                            found lining


                                                            the streets of
                                                            a negative slander,


                                                            the alleyways
                                                            standing vacant


                                                            as window dressing,
                                                            as birdshot


                                                            blanketing the
                                                            brocaded nightmares


                                                            of a silent dawn
                                                            sifting slowly


                                                            into a slippery
                                                            afternoon of evil.      




Ephram Pratt Sings of the Darkness

                                    Freshly mown
                                    like invisible grass


                                    closing in on the horizon,       
                                    week by week
           
                                    and hour by hour,
                                    the libertine voyeurs


                                    linger in the darkness
                                    like starlings


                                    diving into deep pools
                                    of snow birds,


                                    bristling with agitation,
                                    growling in tiny


                                    voices of distain.
                                    Let them imitate


                                    weddings taking place
                                    in silence,


                                    while blue bells
                                    eat & breath


                                    in the vacant distance,
                                    illicit and glowing.

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