Short Hyphen Poems

winter gravestone
hyphen between dates
my father's life...

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Chase Johnson-Mullins
was originally thought of as one of the dull’uns
then the hyphen was added
after most of his stats were conveniently padded....

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Straighten the spring within the edges
Brighten the sky within the abilities
Hyphen the words within the statements
Embolden the nature within the directional...

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A baby is born 
Two dates separated by hyphen
Hyphen or dash: that's life

II
We fall in love -
One day one, or both, will die

III
We are born -
We learn; even think deep thoughts -
And die....

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Listen to poem:

One, a hole, a dot, a singularity 
Two, twin dots of eyes that look back at me
Three, an ellipsis falling short tersely
Four, connect-the-dots to make a square, shapely
Five a quincunx, criss-crossed diagonally 
Six, a double hyphen of dots, two lines of three...

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Beneath this engraved stone I forever rest,
all my pain has vanished,
all my worries are long gone,
all the tearful goodbyes have dried up.
I am now a polished piece of rock;
a hyphen, a small dash, represents my entire existence...
I tried so hard to be so much more.
Take loving care of what I have become.


For "Stones" contest sponsored by Rick Parise....

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In days of old so I’m told Theodore Roosevelt did explain he had no use for the hyphen in any American name. 
And now one can see how the hyphen such a tiny grammatical mark has pushed us apart. 
We are all Americans who may hail from distant shores but now this is our home worth protecting and fighting for.
Do not let the hyphen define you ,where you once were is now behind you.
Let us join together one and all for we are Americans...

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You are my life's apostrophe
The part that has always been missing in me
You're right where the hyphen used to be-
You are my life's apostrophe

Once a question mark was all I had? 
And commas dominated my soul, 
Semicolons; separated my dreams
And the ellipse was firmly in control...

Then you placed your brackets around my [heart]
Your braces around my {soul}
Your parentheses surround my (dreams) 
You're the exclamation mark in my life so droll!...

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Sexism was chasing a 
gibbous moon whole night. 
I ask the virtuous dark, 
will you be a hangman ?

Targeted love was a bliss 
for a dying man. You need 
to walk on a fine line to 
attain the liberation.

Despite the coveted prize, 
killing was more convenient. 
There hangs a tale, you 
cannot play the tune again.

Without the hyphen, the 
other side becomes blue. 
A belief starts the tremors 
in the sleeves of a headless moon.


Satish Verma...

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where does the line we draw
                     begin
is it somewhere behind
                     or before;
is it between us
 lost in the tangle we step
inordinate
to be 
within the line?

what a jagged jig we jag
  among a potpourri 
       that of
tin cans and broken branches.
 we kick to clear
our way
 sometimes skimming
 sometimes skipping.

lost and crazy
it seems

crossover, crossover, crossover

because we draw the line.

how 'bout a hyphen?...

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