< Alice >

[rayheinrich]

                               



                                                            < Alice >

                                        i'm not sure i know anything anymore
                                        but anyway
                                        on with the day
                                       
                                        and where am i?
                                        crossing 6th avenue
                                        every day for the last three years
                                        on my way to?
                                        work
                                       
                                        a truck?
                                        jesus fuck!
                                        missed me by inches
                                       
                                        but the bus didn't
                                       
                                        i've seen this movie before
                                        i'm
                                        floating above the street
                                        looking down on my body
                                       
                                        blood
                                        ...and my poor legs
                                       
                                        at least my face is ok
                                        and my eyes
                                        staring
                                        at what?
                                        i can't remember
                                       
                                        and getting to work
                                        ha!
                                        not with those legs i won't
                                       
                                        i thought it would be different
                                        dramatic?
                                        tragic?
                                       
                                        but it's like i lost something out of my pocket
                                        and there's no need to look for it anymore

                                                                - - -







image: photograph of Alice, 24 years old - ray
            soft-sampled, color values compressed using photoshop - ray
map: Google Maps


Map of the location of Alice's ghost on 6th Ave.

                               
Monday morning at 7:40 am, 9 Oct 2017, Southwest crosswalk

Permissions:

Please feel free to go as off-topic as you want.
I most prize comments that describe what you thought and felt when you were reading
the poem, irrespective of the content of the poem. Also encouraged are off-topic comments
(what you had for breakfast this morning or anything about cats - I live with eight) and poems
that answer the one above (Leanne loved doing that). As well as corrections to grammar,
spelling, and suggestions for improved wording of lines. And yes, it's not lost on me that all
my "poems" aren't poems; they're really multiple-media cuz they contain images as well.

[Lizzie]

The last two lines are splendid. The rest feels like a brainstorm -- a rough draft to be fleshed out later. But, I know that minimalism is more your style these days. 

The image does look a little ghostly, like there's something swirling around above the street. 

I'm assuming that this is Alice from wonderland, but I have no reason to think that. Although, I do wonder now if maybe she was a real person. Whether it's a beloved book character or a beloved daughter/mother/sister, it's sad all the same. It does seem that there's a hint at the end that death isn't really this terrible thing, more just a thing. 

I dispute this notion that poetry cannot be multimedia. Is that you talking, or was that someone else's opinion? 

This morning, it's half an English muffin that my daughter didn't finish. 

And coffee. Always coffee. Too much and never enough.