Originally Published in Silly Linguistics Magazine, issue 30.
Words are:
Ideas given form and speaking room,
in a book of treasure, with names to categorize,
and bring nominal certainty.
First we order, then pick,
then say,
and finally name the lexemes of our world.
Yet on our tongues they are fluid and changing,
bending to our will,
Literally.
In time we rush, giving them short shrift
as we scribble them down in unsound script.
And so give power to the utterances,
ephemeral sounds fading in the air,
with casual voices they enchant us.
Sayings become spells,
Letters age, forgotten, and are recast as runes,
The very grammar trapping us in its glamour.
N.B. The formatting of the original is slightly different.
Ed Bedford 