While earning my bachelor's degree in English, I took several graduate level classes in poetry writing and explication. Poetry has always been my first love. I dream in couplets. I can't say I'm very good at it; my poetry always falls short of the image, feeling, event I'm trying to capture. I haven't written much poetry in the last five years. In January, though, I started writing it again. And I thought maybe I'd share a little something with you. I've been working on this poem for a couple of weeks. I'm not sure it's exactly where I want it. But it's getting there. This is about my relationship with God and words. xo. EE.

 

The Inceptive Soliloquy

These, my words, burned up like chaff,

burned out like the sleep deprived mother of a newborn baby.

Words broken like bread,

poured out like blood,

shed for you.

Words sweet as honeycomb

and damning as fire,

all given, all-all, until one word remains—

                           your name, set as a seal on my heart

seared into my soul.

Year after year pressing deeper, jealous

after every jot and tittle

gathering colloquies, vernaculars, dialects to yourself,

giving and taking away

from conception to grave; You: the inceptive soliloquy

bespeaking every alphabet

every elementary particle,

entangling me in the fundamental question:

In the beginning was the word,

would you have spoken it knowing

we’d reject You?

EE
March 13, 2016