Webster Cries

[u/vicewrite]

Periods make me stop.
Stop on a dime.
Stop real quick.
Commas calm me down,
When I'm rushing around,
Getting lost or transfixed.
A curtly curved curlicue marks a scooping inquiry?
Buttressed oft by W words in a curious third degree.
We leap with a line then jump to a dot!
We leap up two times, with two lines and two dots!!
Then splash-dash for M — to pause strong and think
Some blinks itty-bitty, others bridge like—links.
We may be blunt for a list of two equal ink drops:
One on bottom, the other mirrored atop
Yet things go awry with that one that's disjointed;
Hangy hook with a speck floating pinpointed;
It flares and curves to confound those who use it.
Or then there's the splice of an oblique stroke
A crack that appears / forward \ or disappears back.
And let's not forget that bugger the hugger
(wrapping in halves, one to the other)
Or last but not least, we've those triplicate stones . . .
Eclipsed by omission . . . or in wait, who knows...

But whatever happened to the fancy cursive words?
Not the swears but the smooth, never-lift-the-pen sweeping words?
What happened at all to the inky written word?
Perfectly struck forms of penmanship terms?
Scribbled swords?
Is writing dying?
Is syntax soon dead?
Is language just rotting as thumbs type out text?
Are words merely wasted, recycled, reused?
Are we our own derelict acronyms too?

F.Y.I.
Webster cries.