The Grammar Gangsters Poem by Amy Sutton

Beware the grammar gangsters!
The mafia of the literary underworld.
They saunter into stanzas,
Weapons concealed
Under their trench coats
Or in violin cases.

They can make you talk,
'With just a few well-placed speech marks, '
Leave you shouting! Where you should have whispered!
And pulp your bold statements into quavering questions?
They can, pepper, your, phrases with, commas,
Or bring your piece to a dead.
Full.
Stop.

They'll trap you (between brackets)
As you - dash - to the exit.
Then: punch a blunted colon
Into the gut of your text
Or worse;
Force-feed you a poisonous semicolon,
Then hack/slash your work to shreds.

The grammar gangsters
Never leave survivors.
Readers discover the victims
In the back alleys of the library,
Bloodstained,
Left unfinished,
In a tommy-gun ellipsis...