Although the weekend has made me miss a few (I may catch up later), today's topic of 'Words' was very inspiring. I'm also enjoying my renewed love of form poetry. This is a kind of Kyrielle; first I made it harder by adopting a difficult rhyme scheme, then I made it easier by making the refrain only half a line long rather than the whole line at the end of each stanza; then to even things out I made it harder again by repeating the refrain at the beginning and the end of each stanza. I can't decide whether fiddling with the punctuation in the refrain counts as cunning or cheating.
Words
Words work for me, my employees
A quarter of a million strong
buzz round my head like swarming bees
as I direct: words, work for me!
Words work for me, I send them out
to fill each story, verse or song
Some I make whisper, others shout.
They wound, move, heal. Words work for me.
Words work for me: all except one,
the master to whom I belong:
and every word beneath the Sun
Cannot explain Word's work for me.
Oh, delightful :)
ReplyDeleteThat's great. I definitely think cunning rather than cheating. It allows you to draw interesting new meanings out. Otherwise you'd just be repeating yourself right where the climax of the poem should be, like an Edward Lear limerick.
ReplyDeleteRachael