Jack E. Lorts - Two Poems

Ephram Pratt Extolls Billiard Balls of Dust
 
Encased in silence
like wings on
 
an invisible bird,
the lions of redress
 
unleash themselves
into broad strokes
 
of an isolated burgess
welcomed into
 
the invisible by
a lack of industry
 
and elasticity
misdirected to
 
the ancient sunlight
flowing into fountains
 
of incremental lightning
intrigued by a
 
multitude of stoppages,
cleansing the fingers
 
of a withered hand,
blasted in a
 
salt peter function of
billiard balls despairing,
 
lazily crooning in a
voice of dust.
 
 
 
Ephram Pratt Admits to Fawning Acclivity
 
Enticed by an elegance
of shared darkness,
 
of lights appearing
on the horizon
 
of a coming of age
dream, bucolic & broken,
 
like an incidence
of irregularity
 
needled and enfolded
in silence;
 
let the brokenness
of a fatal lament
 
seek out the messengers,
seek out what we know
 
but whisper softly
only on days numbered
 
in the Book of Life,
the Book of Hezekiah
 
sewn backwards
into a sullen scripture,
 
betoken by acclivity
and beckoned
 
into silence by
a never waning sky.
 
 
 
Jack E. Lorts, a retired educator, lives in a small remote town in eastern Oregon. He’s appeared widely, if infrequently over the past 40+ years, recently on-line in Haggard & Halloo, Elohi Gadugi, Dead Snakes, etc. Active in Democratic politics, he’s run for the Oregon House of Representatives and was mayor of Fossil, Oregon, population 479, for many years.