Carry On Dream

BY DR. AGONSON

And when the dream has died, no one will know.
A flippant foolishness it’s to pretend
that Life would spare me from this final end:
Not you, Life says, be gone you bitter crow.

No hope, it all has passed, an Ichabod,
a foul remorseless thing, my dreams are dead.
Despair, Life lets me live but as with lead
has weighed me down to hell, my voice has cawed.

But still, it’s life I choose to serve. My word,
written, will praise that end. Gross carrion
—on such I sup—is what I’m buried in.
My dream is dead, and I’m but a blackbird.