Dream Takers
By Linda A. Copp

Come, they told me,
Come dream a little,
drink a little, give a little.

So, I went, I dreamed, I drank, I gave.

And they let me, they led me, they bled me.

And now, there are no dreams,
no wines, no sweet songs
and nothing left to give.

Good-bye they said,
we have your dreams,
your hours, and what you once had,
the things you could not afford to give.

Do you expect indignation, tears,
anger from me?
Yet, do you expect me to forget?
I shan't forget, I shan't ever forget -

For it's not that you took my coins,
those hard earned pennies.
Not even that you bled my dream
for it shall survive you,
But, rather that you took my time
the irreplaceable, the unexplained
and gone.

This I shan't forget and
I shan't forgive that come...
That come, that tells others to dream,
to give and to bleed,
And then perhaps to perish
when the dreams cannot be.

I shan't forgive the dream takers for this-
For the next dreamer robbed may not survive,
and you'll kill them,
kill them,
As surely as you'd done it
with a knife!

By Linda A. Copp
 ©June 4, 1971