A period here. a question mark there?
A handful of commas,,,tossed in the air
To fall all willy-nilly but he doesn't care.
Then he closes his eyes so he never sees,
And does it again with apostrophe's.
Next colons: and semis; are put through their paces,
And are frequently found in the oddest of places.
Quotations are more than just dressing or stuffing,
Yet often appear when "nobody said nuffing".
It makes reading a chore just to try to adhere
To a writer's directions of what to do where,
But you barrel on through 'til you get to the end,
Give your eyes time to uncross,
And then try it again.
Some poets abjure punctuation, for sure,
And though not a big fan,
I'm a reasonable man.
e e cummings, for example,
Responds to the call
By using little or no punctuation at all.
Author's note: To quote the author Cormac McCarthy: "If you write properly you shouldn't have to punctuate." Poets such as e e cummings, et al, apparently took him up on that. Please understand, dear reader, that this piece is punctuated incorrectly to make a point. And I blush to admit that I, myself, am overly fond of "quotation marks" and…ellipses.
Don’t use special characters!
In writing I was told,
Next to the title of my poem.
(The letters black and bold.)
“Poems Don’t Have to Rhyme,” is what
I chose to name my piece,
But with this title, what I wrote
The site would not release.
For only letters, numbers, dashes,
Commas are allowed;
Apostrophes and colons, too,
Are welcomed in that crowd.
I looked back at my heading
And I didn’t understand
Exactly how it merited
That tyrant-like command.
I had to change my title –
It’s called “Poems” now on my list,
But someone messing with my words
Makes me feel awfully pissed.
There was a Christmas party
The meal was very hearty
With onions and cabbage
Our colons it ravaged
Leaving us rather farty
I hate Periods and like most Commas,
a Full Stop turns me off
Quotation Marks I can endure,
but Semi-colons not
I love a good Exclamation Point,
all Question Marks so so
But my favorite is the Em Dash
—replacing most of those
(Villanova Pennsylvania: March, 2020)
Only letters, numbers,
dashes, commas,
apostrophes
and colons
are allowed
in the title.
though this sentence
ends in a period
periods aren't
allowed at
all
period!!!
what's more bothersome
written in red as if from
the blood of my pen
Don't Use
Special
Characters
but
thinking
i always thought
that colons were special
i have one in my body
colonoscopy
By Parizo Van Thulare
You have spooked my eyes
you shocked my nerves
Wrestling my semi colons
Showing no mercy to these protons
Why is this creature obsessed with night ?
Why is he creeping minds ?
You give a rise to this negative thoughts
You steal time and feed the shadows
You send colorful reapers to stare us on the windows
Only those that have fear will cover themselves with pillows
Maybe you are scared of the light
Why you come sneaking ?
Later this time you start showing up
Why don't you come during the day ?
So that everyone will get a chance to see their enemy
I will hunt you down some day
I will chase you away
I will make you pay
I'm prepared to walk in the vain
Sweet Dreams will be the only ones to Rain
If,stops,colons comma make sense-
sounds become your cadence
inspired by the words of the duchess in Alice in Wonderland
homeward
The landscape of my dreams is a Pampa
with occasional trees,
Like commas stretching to the horizon and not a full stop in between the extreme
I was born in a gorge between dark mountains
that was ok till the got a tunnel and Indonesian got work cleaning floors,
we`re now patronizing and multinational.
Then an Arab arrived and many joined NF, except the teacher how refused
to write anything with semi-colons and the swelling rank of neo- liberals.
Error Code >
Laid down her arms
relinquished the chair
The challenger had arrived
flashed up onscreen
Repeating the action
She examined its power
Efforts to no avail
It returned to the scene
Our hero was facing
A technical hitch
That unforgiving popup
With the evil red sheen
Carefully she read
But could not comprehend
Commas colons and code
Both seen and unseen
Ah, the dire terminology
Bane of the user!
System thirty-two?
Now what could that mean?
She wouldn’t take defeat
At least not lying down
And so took to the cursor
Whizzed it ‘cross the screen
A courageous move
Though a foolish one too
*Miss-click*
The hard drive was wiped?
Damn this machine!
I checked my last two poems
Then I searched for understanding
But then I realised the love
The poem allows for ignorance
The lack of understanding
The disobedience of language
Its rules and colons
Its commas or decision
That is my love
The ignoble is now the monarch
Where are the rules of language
They are lost in rancour
That the message is passed
There is my love
Such a grammar fiend, is this thing called punctuation.
A huge plethora of mind numbing aggravation.
Commas, periods and parenthesis too;
colons and semicolons; what's a writer to do?
In spelling, I used to make only straight A's.
Now I blow up spell check most every day.
I could avoid punctuation; write only Haiku,
but I'm no quitter; to myself I must be true.
My teacher always told me, "If you can't spell a word,
look it up in the dictionary." Silliest thing I ever heard.
All the words are there in column after column,
but, how to look them up, if you can't even spellum?!
THE QUESTION MARK
Our life-
A question mark it is-
Struggling
Into an exclamation point
To turn
But
After numerous battles against
A series of:
Commas
Semicolons
Colons
Brackets and
Dashes,
Exhausted;
Ends up-
In most cases-
A…period "." to
Be.
© Demetrios Trifiatis
11 JUNE 2013
THE OBAMAS AND THE PAPAS
In this case I ain’t no liar
I know of whence I speak
Allow your children to walk into a fire
And all of you will be left spent and weak
Little Johnnie’s girlfriend had her some weed
And Johnnie wanted into her tight blue jeans
So although he knew it was a low down deed
When it comes to sex AND a teen drugs AIN’T a hill of beans
Yeah, so dig this all you phoolish papas and mamas
Don’t hide the truth and hope for the best
And I say that without any semi-colons or commas
With my own habit and sins TO WHICH I’ve confessed
So two years from today when Johnny stumbles in and asks for some sort of food
Remind him of all the time you’ve watched his habit grow
And if you really want to put Johnnie in a very vile mood
Just remind him that he had a chance to say “no’ © 2011.…Phreepoetree ~free cee!~
I have a box with forgotten words
And punctuation seldom used
In this box are synonyms
And grammar I’ve abused
There are commas there and colons too
Apostrophes spilling out the top
But the one thing there that I’ve got most
Are unused periods to make a sentence stop
I have one friend this bugs the most
Says no periods make my poems fuzzy
So I’ve collected them all and present them now
To the wonderful Deborah Guzzi
……………………………………………………………………..
……………………………………………………………………..
……………………………………………………………………..
……………………………………………………………………..
……………………………………………………………………..
………………………………………………………………………
………………………………………………………………………
Please feel free to apply them now
To my poems written in the past
I know it’s an offense I’m repeating again
But, I assure you this won’t be the last
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