Wonderland

Freeverse

You stare into your upside-down top hat,

gaze at thoughts kept there

as you peer within that weird cavity

like Alice gazing into a rabbit hole.

 

Do you see a fantasy world in that magic hole?

That weird stuff appears so real to you

in that top hat where thoughts and dreams accrue

as if in a gap in the ground, a magic pit, dear Alice?

 

Or is that dream a giddy glimpse of your strange self?

Are you an Alice looking down a hole, though gazing at a ghoul

that goggles back like something

that peers purposefully from a distorted mirror?

 

 

(27 Jul 2023)

Reviews

[Chris Shaw]

I have my copy of Alice in Wonderland a gift for Christmas from my only aunt when I was nine years old:)Well read it is too and the coloured ilustrations coming loose from the hard bound cover. The Cheshire Cat used to scare me but I liked the idea of growing smaller and smaller and falling down a hole into another land. Do we poets have strange minds? We have creative minds which take us to places unfamiliar to others. Happy Saturday Andrew.

Chris

[Andrew John]

Thanks, Chris. Oddly enough, I've just seen - and borrowed - _Through the Looking Glass_ in my library, where the IT suite is and where I am now, with Alice by my side. Fancy reading Carroll at my age. But, hell, why not!?

[Chris Shaw]

You know I think it might be catching. We are boating today, but I may be reading Alice later :)

[carl]

"Alice style we've come for awhile then back to shinning glass," a line from one of my poems. Glad to hear from a Wonderland fan, the Alice books two of my favorites, so entertaining yet so deep. I vote for what I'm seeing is in fact a mirror ( probably one of many.) Thanks for taking us along. -carl

[Andrew John]

Long time I read any Alice, Carl. But it's worth it. Oddly, first thing I saw in my mind's eye was the top hat, then thought of a hole in the ground, then thought of Alice gazing into it. Do we poets have strange minds?