Ephram Pratt Builds an Ambidextrous Logic
Ephram Pratt Builds an Ambidextrous Logic
by Jack e Lorts
Put your finger on it,
and pull the beautiful
and billowing fortress
along the lower river
in toward the shore;
let it sink slowly
in the shallows,
lying dormant
as an egg,
swallowed by incense
lingering in the shadow
of an ignoble Banshee.
Don’t let it fly unknown,
repeating slowly
what you know to be true,
what you know exists
in timelessness,
like the fingers on
your left hand, seeking
an ambidextrous logic,
invested in isolation
like a razor sulking.
A lovely Ephram Pratt poem, which I think has to do with bringing the right and left brain together: putting a finger on an image [“along the lower river” (of the unconscious or intuition)] and pulling it “toward the shore” [of consciousness or rationality] but then letting it “sink slowly in the shallows, lying dormant as an egg.” Seems like it should be let to “fly unknown [that is, to anyone else], repeating slowly what you know to be true,” but, whatever, this subjective logic is “invested in isolation” so to produce that last whiz of a line, which is positive and uplifting. After all, a cutting edge with nothing to cut–define, make clear–would just have to sulk.
A person must tend to their individual self as contained in a vacuum before and over their place in the world and what they must do to survive. There is an interconnectedness and even a dependence, but there is a pecking order of importance and an incessant need for clarity to achieve transcendence.
Thanks for the read!
Sorry, Jack. Quasimofo, every time you have a poem posted, I’m tempted to write a parody of it, but find my randomness not broad enough, my alliteration and assonance not precious enough, my associations not vulgar enough, my anger not violent enough, my sense of self not deprecating enough. And yet you make such fine comments. if I embodied your extremes, I’d be dead. Keep your sensibility alive and well!