Abecedephobia

by Brett Rutherford

     after Barbara A. Holland

 

The letters of the alphabet

frighten me terribly.

They are sly, shameless

demons, and dangerous!

 

You open the inkwell

to release them, and off

they go. How will you ever

get control of them again?

 

Coming to life, they join,

separate. They ignore commands,

arranging themselves

on the paper, serif'd black

with horns and tails.

 

You scream at them

and implore in vain.

They do as they please,

preening and pairing up

shamelessly before you.

 

They gleefully expose

what you had hoped to conceal,

yet they refuse to voice

the truth that struggles deep

in your bowels, that one thing

you want to share with

    all of Mankind.

 

Why time and again

I took up this quill,

why time and again

I abandoned the act

of writing. Things,

if they are to be said at all

must be said in letters,

the little devils whose

conjunct joinings alone

make words that are more

than exclamations. The gods

must forgive me if "O!"

cannot convey my message.

 

Demons of the alphabet,

come take my hand.

Eyes closed, I cannot do this;

eyes open, I risk

the heart attack

of seeing what I say

too late to smudge

the fatal words away.

 

(based on a 1971-72 journal entry by Barbara A. Holland)