Competition: Pause and effect

In Competition No. 2731 you were invited to supply a poem in praise of punctuation.

An excellent entry, this. Space is tight and I very much regretted not having room for Alan Millard, David Duncan Jones and Frank Osen in addition to the worthy winners below.

The bonus fiver belongs to Basil Ransome-Davies. The rest pocket £25.

I dallied with a comma whose cute curves had made me pause
And catch my breath, if only for a second,
But she’d a wild obsession with an adjectival clause
Whose charismatic syntax always beckoned.

My rebound squeeze, a semi-colon eager to be kissed,
Proved versatile, a mark of many talents.
She had the power to subdivide a rather lengthy list
Or function as the pivot of a balance.

And did I stop there? No! Get this: I nursed a massive ‘pash’ —
An adolescent crush — for punctuation.
I venerated  hyphens; worshipped quotes; adored a dash.
It was an out-and-out infatuation.

Parentheses and pilcrows always set my heart on fire.
It throbs until I think my veins will pop.
Apostrophes (used rightly) I exceedingly admire.
It’s the romance of a lifetime, this. Full stop.
Basil Ransome-Davies

How do I use you? Let me count the ways.
Full stop, though you are just a simple dot,
You’re quite the most important of the lot:
Without you either style or reason strays.
Unmarked, some quote or question soon might faze
A reader (in parenthesis or not);
Smart colon and your semi form you’re what
Denotes a list, a clause, though not a phrase.
The trickiest, my dear apostrophe,
Gives scope for me to mock my less skilled foes.
I use you all, but, little comma, you
Deserve my love because you render me
The chance to pause, admire my verse and prose —
And, dash it all, exclaim about it too!
Alanna Blake

We do not come as minding to content you,
Our true intent is.