Encountered by silence
in a reservation of light,
he stands guard
like a sentry in exile,
lifting an invisible voice
into harmony
with victorious angels,
lighting bronze lanterns,
casting light into
the darkness of mid-day,
the darkness of
antipathy, melting
into an assumption
of vinegar and delight.
Cross the deserts
of morality
with the sounds that echo,
like immigrant voices,
silent as syncopation.
etching its voice into
Francis of Assisi’s
frock, hanging loosely
from his shoulders,
and coughing in silence
to the ears pierced
by illuminating angels.
Inelegant was the word
whispered into
a wispy silence
surrounding
absurd signs of
soft digitalis and apples,
fondled softly
by shackaleers
leaning into the wind
arriving from the south.
If the fox glove
was withering,
it was news
to the elevator operators
acknowledging
incandescent logic,
while singing dirges
forgotten for centuries,
and revived only
for the realms of fantasy
held tightly
in the stirring aftermath
of liberated angst,
broken by
a moon shadowed
loneliness.
Ephram Pratt Winces at the Sound of Poppies
Delivered in silence
by voices heard
only in the vapors
of an expanded avoidance,
one crossing torches
and finger tips
with shackaleers
known to reach
heights and depths
or irrational indignation.
Color the irregularities
a colorless shade of mauve,
and let them lip sync
their way onto
the deserted rooftop
of a burning warehouse,
a roof lined with
secular candelabra,
whose flames whisper
nothing into
the roiling air above
a wilted grove of poppies.BIO: Jack e Lorts has appeared widely, if infrequently, over the past 40+ years in such magazines as Arizona Quarterly, Kansas Quarterly, English Journal, Oregon English Journal, Arsenic Lobster and High Desert Journal, etc. More recently, his “Ephram Pratt” poems have appeared extensively in Haggard and Halloo and Elohi Gadugi and elsewhere on-line. A retired educator, he’s active in state and local politics, currently Mayor of Fossil, OR (population 478).
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