Three Poems by Jack e Lorts

Ephram Pratt Basks in Silver Moonlight

Disembark immediately
on the advice of

a winged serpent
lying dormant

in a cavern aswil
with anxiety, bile

and a nightshade
swimming in silence.

Let august lanterns
slip indecisively

into oblivion,
basking in moonlight

while dangers
slip into deep seated

anger and dissonance.
Is it because

of the juices
filling the veins

of high flying votives,
eager to enter

into agreements with
soft boiled eggs,

grasped firmly
by velvet hands?

No one knows!
Only the fairy handlers.



Ephram Pratt Sings of the Solid Air

A miraculous virginity
struggled across

a lonely open space,
like wilted lettuce

lingering in a cold sobriety,
fenced in and spacious,

while deftly delivering
verbal molasses

across tightly guarded
borders of solid air.

He winced as
he drove slowly

into downtown darkness,
like an elephantine

scream, witnessed
by jailors and jurors

as they sang
unknown Bach cantatas

with vacant voices,
into the silence

of shackaleers
reciting a voiceless poem.



Ephram Pratt Paints the Granite Eyelids

The fence posts rowing
discreetly into wheat fields

define insanity
with soft strokes

of rosemary, lining
the gossamer wings

of angry seraphim,
sleeping under bridges

and along the arid roads
of eastern Oregon.

They deliver soft pillows
of incense and joy

to the sand painters,
weeping openly

while they plant
their eyelids firmly

on bracken, gold chains,
large enough to

remove granite pedestals
from sink holes

found in small cities
lining the Great River

as it meanders
slowly to the sea.

Jack e Lorts is a retired educator living in a small remote town in eastern Oregon.  His poems, particularly his recent Ephram Pratt poems, have appeared widely in print or online in such places as Haggard and Halloo, Elohi Gadugi, Clackamas Literary Review, Fault Lines and elsewhere.  His earlier work from the late 50's through the early 2000's was published widely if infrequently in such places as Arizona Quarterly, Kansas Quarterly, English Journal, Abbey, Agnostic Lobster, Oregon East, High Desert Journal, etc.  His most recent chapbook is "Dear Gilbert Sorrentino and Other Poems" is from Finishing Line Press.  Active in Democratic politics at the local and state level, he served as mayor of Fossil, Oregon (population 479) for many years.