Poetic Justice: A Period Piece

The writer was accused of a
Capital offense
When a lower case letter
Started one sentence.

"Words, words, words!,"
He was heard to exclaim
And upon a period
He fixed all blame.

"I had no idea
That sentence had ended;
I thought, instead,
It was merely extended.

A colon with one dot
Instead of with two
Is half of the usual;
You admit this is true?

Well half of a whole
Is partial credit,
So I left it as-is
In my final edit.

I let the sentence
Just roll on
Because I thought the period
was a semi-colon.

But Your Honor," he offered,
By way of a carat,
"I heard a joke and
I'd like to share it.

You know how it is
When you're running late?
It was 'dine and dash'
When the hyphen ate.

Or did you hear
Of the man named Parks
Who disputed Communism
And questioned Marx?

Or the animator who sold
Her office joint?
She no longer saw
The ex-claymation point.

Or do you know why
The beach makes us so tanned?
It's all the electricity
From the amperes-sand!"

But the judge, it seems,
Was not amused.
When asked for mercy
He simply refused.

Instead, he proclaimed
A painful pennance,
A terrible time,
A serious sentence.

"It concerns punctuation
Of a different sort,"
And he would not let
The man retort.

"Words do not fail me
As they failed you
And I will now do
What I do for your due.

Since you seem ignorant
Of your plight
And do not know
Your Wrong from write

You shall stay locked up
In a concrete slammer
An extended period
For using bad grammar.

The man was heard shouting
As he went to his fate.
"I'll fight this decision
With a punch - you wait!"