Pilgrimage long over

Sixty-one decades now have passed,
Since Geoffrey Chaucer breathed his last.

On courting love

I courted Love, urged her to stay,
She laughed, and quickly slipped away,
And vanished like a morning's dew,
A springtime bloom, when love was new.

At the convenience store

When I stop in to spend my dough,
Don't greet me with, "Hey, Dude!," or "Bro'."
It's quite enough to say, "Hello,"
Or, "Hello, sir," to show respect,
That greeting's also quite correct;
It was, the last time that I checked.

The hyphen

The hyphen is a simple dash;
The eye flicks by it in a flash.
When should I use it, and if not,
What choice have I? It's all I've got.

Unlike full stops, or the comma,
Hyphens provide little drama,
And seeing one, once I edit,
It may look wrong, when I've read it.

Sometimes its use relies on choice,
Dependent on the writer's voice;
Or poorly-placed, may obfuscate
A meaning that I want to state.

An editor, with fixations
Over proper punctuations,
May make decisions arbitrary,
In hyphening vocabulary.

Take the arcane dieresis;
Its ubiquity decreases,
Yet The New Yorker's iron style
Demands it from its rank and file.

With care, the hyphen has been used
To clarify, when not abused.
Consistency will shape the work;
That principle one mustn't shirk.

Shopping at the mall

Wife loves to shop; that's just her way,
An urge that husband must obey.
He groans a bit, and rolls his eyes,
But keeps his mouth shut - if he's wise.

He knows he'll miss the football game,
But he's missed more than he could name.
"Let's go," he says, "I'll drive the car,"
(The nearest mall's not very far).

When they arrive, he has no role;
The weekend sales are in control.
"I'll wait for you, I'll take a seat,
I'll read my book, I'll rest my feet."

His wife, in search of something new,
Runs off to shop, as if on cue.
No use to grumble at his fate,
Resigned, he now prepares to wait.

He finds a bench, amidst the throng:
Young parents dragging kids along,
Old people, teens, both short and tall,
Just Saturday, inside the mall.

On the rat race

Hurry up, you're too damned slow,
Move your butt, come on , let's go,

Skip the breakfast, can't be late,
Quick now, don't procrastinate,

Time for work, no time to fuss,
Grab your coat, go catch the bus;

Rats run hard to win the race;
Lucky, if we even place.

October

An orange harvest moon
Fills up the sky;
Ghosts and hobgoblins haunt
Apple cider season