Read Me
No question marks
hazard this heart.
Apostrophe:
you'll find I'm yours.
Ellipses? Leave
no truths behind.
No brackets
barricading bliss.
No colon scolding
how to feel.
Quotes only
round sincerities.
No exclamations
save in joy.
No commas drawing
lists of flaws.
No dashes dare
disrupt our care.
No hyphens smiting
word from bond.
But ampersands
between us stand.
Above all cross-offs,
underlines,
we'll love each other.
Period.
Read Me © Copyright 2021, Robert J. Tiess.
View this poem at AllPoetry.com
67 words. Willie Nelson song (Country Music) inspiration prompt challenge - link:
https://allpoetry.com/contest/2736595-Country-Music---Contest-3-
The poem draws initial inspiration from the presence of a question in the first line of the song prompt, and starts off on its own tangent with a question mark, approaching love as something beyond any dangerous doubting. The poem then proceeds to contemplate love's emotions and meanings through various symbols of punctuation.
The title has several potential interpretive contexts as well, foremost with the aspects of often needless punctuation, according to the speaker of the poem. The computer specialist in me can also appreciate this as an allusion to the popular README.txt file often included with program installations as a file meant to be viewed by the user.
Submitted: November 25, 2019