Declining to Join Alice

Once upon a time

In the late 1900’s actually

And in the normal mundanity

Of the typical boring times we used to live

We read about the adventures of one ‘Alice’

Who fell down a deep, deep rabbit hole

Tumbling

Twisting

Pratfalling at the bottom!

Pain in her own bottom and stars in her head!

Alice found herself in Wonderland

Where her technicolored nightmare begins…

She met colorful, bewitching and zany inhabitants

Like Tweedledee and Tweedledum

         and whiny Humpty Dumpty, falling off a wall

There was a wily slime-green caterpillar

        and enigmatic Cheshire cat

The Mad Hatter and his friend the March Hare

        a talking lion and unicorn

Off-colored flora, fauna and small animals

And most weird of all —

Attending a very proper English tea party

        with the buxom ‘Queen of Hearts’

Who ends up ordering her wacky

Deck-of-cards soldiers to chase down Alice  

With the intent to be ‘off with her head!’

We all dreaded the inevitable for Alice, didn’t we?

There was no way out!

No way, seemingly

For Alice to get way back up that hole!

Maybe the first horror movie masquerading as a fairytale?

For decades poor Alice’s ordeal gave birth to the warning

—when speaking of ridiculous ideas—

‘You don’t want to go down that rabbit hole!’

 

Not so funny now

Not in our new normal

Our modern day rabbit-hole has become not so ridiculous

Albeit, still an alternate universe

Yet, a preferable ‘Escapistland’!

Many now yearn to go there

For without apology, there  

One finds ‘happiness’

Only fantasies allowed!

None of the awful realities

Offered up in our century and a half

Since Alice fell down her ancient rabbit-hole

Indeed, over our current reality

Many prefer that dark hole

After all, above ground we now live

Under existential threat

A real COVID-19 otherworldly reality

The new rabbit-hole is now touted

As ‘The Happiest Place on Earth’!

Who wouldn’t want to go there!

 

I sigh

I cry, even

Then I carefully jump over

That huge, dark, gaping hole in the ground before me

And I search instead for true joy

By way of a certain narrow and crooked road

The way to God’s ‘PARADISELAND’

 

 

 

 

 

Jahgirl

January 9, 2022