Welcome to my first Poetry Monday!

Every Monday on this blog, I’ll be sharing one of my poems, perhaps with a few tidbits about how it came to be written or what I’ve done with it since.  Some of the poems will be new, but others will be things that I move over from a different place on the internet – a place I’ve moved out of – and put up on the walls here, to make it feel like home.  This is one of those.

It’s called ‘Words’, and was inspired by a single word prompt.  If you haven’t seen much of my writing yet, you will discover I’m fond of those!  You’ll also discover that I love playing with different poetic forms.  This one is a sort of kyrielle, but it’s not very strict one –  for example, the refrain is only half a line long where a true kyrielle would have a whole line, and it’s repeated more often than necessary.  Some might object that, because the punctuation changes, it’s not a true refrain; but for me, the joy of repeated words is to tease out as many different meanings from them as possible.

Why not have a go at a Kyrielle – or a version of one – yourself, and leave a link here?

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.