Ephram Pratt Extrapolates on Thunder Eggs
Ephram Pratt Extrapolates on Thunder Eggs
by Jack e Lorts
Word by word
and flower by flower
his words insinuate themselves
into a dying franchise,
his lips sealing the decades
of a brittle midnight.
He sings songs
he doesn’t know at all,
but remembers
from a past life
as an amoeba, an ant,
or a thunder egg.
The final verse
is a cacophony
of bells, whistles
and human voices,
drifting into empty crevices,
abating the fringe
of a tasseled night train,
enveloped by an engineer
with tweed in his veins
from drinking too much wine.
The poet has written other poems about Ephram Pratt. Whom does he stand for?I’m thinking the poet, because the poem is about words, songs, and, primarily, imagery: “word by word and flower by flower” and all those that follow. That they “insinuate themselves into a dying franchise” indicates that they are not reaching their intended audience but only the dying (shrinking perhaps) individually owned creator. “His lips sealing the decades of a brittle midnight” could refer to his life: fragile, cold, uninspiring, certainly unromantic. It seems that if a poet “sings songs he doesn’t know at all but remembers from a past life” that would be a good thing, as having come from a personal or collective unconscious. But no, “an amoeba, an ant, or a thunder egg” diminish that; although the egg–an agate embodied in a chunk of volcanic rock–speaks powerfully and beautifully for what a poem is, albeit sealed in itself. “The final verse,” however, is not beautiful, but “a cacophony,” again unheard, or not much, “drifting into empty crevices” at large. The “night train” reinvokes the “brittle midnight,” here the image attached to just fringes of tassels that get “abated.” Interesting that the train is “enveloped by an engineer,” its driver and presumably creator, whom I would say is bound up inside (“tweed in his veins”) from drowning his sorrows for not being heeded. The poem speaks for most of us poets, today and forever. Sad but true. Good work.