Jack e Lorts- A Poem

BIO: Jack e Lorts retired in 2004 as school superintendent in Fossil, OR (population 479) where he’s also served as Mayor from 2009-2015. His poems have appeared widely over the years in such places as Arizona Quarterly, Kansas Quarterly, English Journal, etc. His recent “Ephram Pratt” poems appear regularly on-line in such places as Haggard and Halloo, Elohi Gadugi, Dead Snakes, and other strange places.

Ephram Pratt Extinguishes the Call of Silence

Localized and vacant

like wind whistling

through thistles

in dormant silence,

echoing in soft cages

caught in burnt branches

of bitterroot,

hanging from

gas lights in the Square.

Pull the rose bushes

into places known

to exhibit loneliness,

to brushes found

in gray bottles of silence,

crossing the trees

in nightly danger,

tossing alabaster moons

into the distance,

bouncing them off of

peeled canisters

of frankincense,

besmirched in silence

by errant traffic ministers,

                                dictating more silence.