Where Have All the Words Gone?
The words have gone down the rabbit hole
and I must become Alice and chase after them,
plummeting for an immeasurable period
through the claustrophobic weight
of chaos like Satan until,
as he did, I hit the rocky bottom of
the hell of my own mind,
as it transforms into the inverted
world of Wonderland
before my absinthe-tinted vision.

As I stand up, I am immediately accosted by a deck of cards
and spirited away into the presence of the Queen of Hearts,
who instantly pronounces me
a traitor to the words and screams, “Off with his head!”

Three of the knaves then tackle me,
pushing me to the center of the courtyard
where, spectacle of spectacles, they lock my head
into the vise of the writer’s block,
its angled blade gleaming high above me
in the ruptured sunlight,
and, any last words denied me, I hear the blade whistling
in release as it unbinds me from
the fetters of speech,
translating me beyond all thought and language.