The White Rabbit scurried past
I’m late I’m late I’m late and she had
to follow him why? I hated
the story it went nowhere stupider
and stupider creepy
smoking caterpillar vicious
Queen of Hearts horrible
pigbaby and I only
six what to make of it? and
at the end the letdown
it was all a dream
so lame
she woke up
back in Victorian England
instead of sorting herself out
instead of escaping
from that hell-pit
by her own wits
like a proper heroine
she just
woke up
lying among the whatever
daisies butterflies
in her pinafore
in her alice band
in her prim little shoes
with her big sister close by
and no deranged
dealers of millinery no
melancholy reptiles no
lakes of tears no
pointlessly battling
rotund little men
I hated the whole story
except for the Cheshire Cat who
seemed the only one who
had it together
A fine rendering of a reaction to ‘Alice’. I thought the ‘return’ section perhaps could have described more deeply the subordination of the Victorian girl and what possibly construed the ‘hell-pit’, and awaited her. In fact, it seemed to indicate a place of safety – albeit ‘prim’ (a great descriptor) and possibly dull to the imagination of the ‘only six’ reader. One of those poems that makes me want more – heroine-ics, darker journies, a kick in the guts. But the speaker does get a little bolshie and made me revisit the meaning of this tale.