Ivy Crown
(with apologies to William Carlos Williams)

Listen - I said to you -
if you think we can last
          another year
     or another day
Then give me your hand,
Please let's try to make
          it through
     without mention
of ideology, you know how
I hate that. I want to
          wear a crown
     of ivy
and dance through the forest
of my regrets and your
          fallen enemies
     and loves.
Instead you hold me here
against the harsher wood
          of no understanding
     and demand
of me the sacrificial blood,
my soul, a lock of my hair,
          too many
     questions.
How can you lie there
and think of freedom when
          the smoke
     surrounds
our heads and cuts away
our breaths?


I once hated WCW, but then I discovered his poem, "The
Ivy Crown." Sometime later, i felt I must write my own Ivy Crown poem.
Mine is far less beautiful or romantic than his, however, but it is one of my
long-time favorites, one of the few I feel no embarrassment about even now.

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