‘Tis a fitting guise
This hyphenated world,
Of hyphenated people
Barely joined together,
By shortest of lines
Save desperate times,
If but to stay alive
Until next apprise,
Holds indefinite man
That we may not survive,
Yet when discord subsides
Thus wanting to encage
He’ll once more fractionize,
By manipulating wage…
In a language to divide
That largely means create
A hyphenated bide,
For a trusting populace
Heedless of words unwise,
Hence fixed to engage
By a language brigade,
Who finds spread confusion
Among the lesser wise,
Hence maximized demand
To maintain the disguise,
Of a hyphenated man
Who powers world divides!
“under the guise of friendship,
he betrayed them”
Poetry on a canapé 
Great metaphor, hyphenated. Very effective “hyphenated people…” Bravo!
Thank you again Paulette. It pleases no end that you were interested in this poem. For the inferred message tries to plead markedly for my concerns, as so with all who have a zest for life and survival. It is, by the way, the title I had chosen for my book #11 now very close to release. Jean-Jacques
Wow, #11. Fabulous!
Thanks Paulette for your enthusiasm on my behalf. Writing for, and putting book number twelve together, has already started. Maybe by the end of twelve I will have said enough…time will surely tell. Jean-Jacques
It is much easier to be “hyphenated” because emotional attachments require some kind of understood connection. But living in this state we embrace mediocrity rather than fulfilling our need for, as you so aptly named: “zest for life and survival.”
You are right, including about embracing mediocrity. Hyphenating has a twofold design or aim, separating as well as joining, and the thinness of the line or attachment that joins us together, so easily separates us when it suits, and thus the little it takes to part when self-serving advantages come in to play, especially for they who hold the power to manipulate those who rely on, trust and believe… more often than not in vain. Jean-Jacques