How Lewis Carroll Saw the Future
And left with Jerry Garcia for parts unknown
I think I’ve learned to be a clipper ship’s sail boom,
to float on the wind in my sunny orange room,
and suddenly laugh amid the zip and the zap
of words that have no substance.
And if you think I am no Shakespeare,
that is completely true, too.
I’ve heard his wife escaped to a zoo!
To forget about ‘ol Hamlet,
and Richard the Third,
she launched herself into the air,
on the back of a giant blue bird.
All through the night they flew,
landing somewhere in wine stained south France,
where gypsies sat atop a forest damp hill,
pouring true fortunes on muddy tired travelers,
all bound for Prague
and once mighty castles
that had not heard the Middle Ages had ended,
and the knights had all left,
sad shining time all somehow now spended
with Camelot.
~**~
I wish I could return to London’s Globe Theater,
but like all else, all I have become
is a tater,
living so deeply underground
That Dostoevsky
Can’t even find me.
~**~
If that sounds like Led Zeppelin,
then you’re as lost as me,
stringing words upon a screen
to horrify my mother!
“John!” she exclaimed, while frying a potato,
“Go back to the store and get me some more.
I’m as mad as you, and don’t you forget it!
Look out for trouble!
Quit living in your bubble!
Go find your Dad, who ran off with my sister.
The creep’s on top, he thinks, but she’ll leave him, too,
just like with Shakespeare
who lost his wife
to adventure, France, gypsies, and a zoo.”
~**~
But, upon hearing this from my Mom, frying her potatoes,
I quickly realized my family was nuts,
and flew to France to live with the gypsies,
and forget about Walt Disney
and meaningless pixies.
My advice to you is don’t go to any zapped zoo.
The monkeys will grab you
and laugh in your face.
“Who the hell do you think you are,
the whole goddamned human race? …
Roaring to Prague
on a cycle named Hog,
writing rhymes rolling down some rabbit’s deep hole,
while the Globe Theater is filled with sound, sweat, and tension,
denouement, finale, and, son,
you’re not mentioned!”
Well, hearing that, I really did lose it.
I climbed on a table that looked like a pizza,
imagining pepperonis
and sausages, too,
monkeys and playwrights,
women and love,
castles in Prague,
AI adventures,
worlds without realities
to balance the madness
we live in around us,
thinking it’s normal: wars, hatred, and sadness.
Lewis Carroll came to me in a dream,
just following Alice down a Black Hole.
“Where am I?” he asked me.
“Don’t you don’t know? This is the 21st century!” I sadly did tell him.
“We’re heating the planet with noxious tailpipe gases!”
“Oh,” he said while turning to Alice,
“I’ve visited Mars with Edgar Rice Burroughs.
I’ve sailed with the Vikings to old Constantinople.
I’ve polished green gems on the desert Silk Road,
I wrote the Sefer ha Zohar under a pen name,
and laughed at the Moon in ancient Japan,
but this is too strange even for me!”
Alice said, “Excuse me,” and left to pee on a bush.
Moses walked by, as if in a trance,
talking with God, who wasn’t all there,
playing straight poker with William J. Shakespeare,
who cried for his wife, and burnt down the Globe,
forgetting that London ain’t Ethiopia,
where God did tricks with fire and a bush,
till Alice put it out, and then headed south
to party with Aliens in the Nubian Desert,
leaving Lewis Carroll with me in my dream,
where I told him what had happened since 1898.
His shock was immense, though hardly surprised,
World Wars 1 and 2, the nuclear bomb,
firebombing cities, then Vietnam,
Ukraine now, murderous Putin,
global warming, while crazies deny it,
thinking they’ll all fly to Mars on a Starship with all of their money,
leaving us to suck up
and deal with their fuck up.
And if that ain’t depressing,
just hop on a train.
Casey Jones will be waiting
with Jerry Garcia.
Country roads will be calling.
I’m leaving, John Denver,
21st century,
madness, remember.
______________________
© “John” Lesly Levin 2023
