The Alice-World by Ed Hack

The Alice-World

I’ve come here where the water flows to see—
to see the world flow by, the sky inside
and upside-down, the shadow-world that’s free
of any trace of human mind—denied
in water’s innocence, the mirror that
it is, the Alice-world where things are real
because they are a child’s truth, the facts
imagination sees—the adults’ spiels
revealed in their grotesqueries, the whole
charade of lunatic authority
whose goal is murdering the human soul
so it obeys, yet feels that it is free.
But knows, disguised in its unquiet sleep,
where slithy toves are murdering the sheep.

by Ed Hack

Editor’s Note: This sonnet immediately upends the reader’s idea of reality, only to find at the end that the truth is possibly more ridiculous than the lies we tell ourselves (hat tip to Carroll’s Jabberwocky in the final line).