Guest Poet
Gayle J. Greenlea - A poem of Alice in Wonderland.
Wonderland
It was your pocket watch I saw first
through
vibrating strings
and I
followed your music by the river
the sound
of you thumping in my chest
leaves of the
forest winding 'round us like a jungle
tangling us in
its roots
"This way, you said,"
and you took
my hand
whooshing me
through a worm
hole;
our fall,
furious and
frenzied
doors behind
us shrinking
as we
drank each other like a potion
until
molecules melded
in poetry
and soup
inflamed with
pepper that made us sneeze
we sobbed
a sea of tears
for recognition
and remembrance
as the
Cheshire Cat grinned his disembodied grin
shooting arrows
at us through the flood
the salty
depths like amniotic fluid
holding us
safely in a womb of home
But then the shout,
"Off with his head,"
and you
were ripped from me
no
warning
carried on a
wave
into a
garden of white roses
and I
watched you through a keyhole
as you
painted them all red
while the
Cheshire cat's grin looked on
And the cook threw her dishes
and rubbed
her eyes with habanero
until the tears
wouldn't stop
and I
could no longer remember my poem
or get my
multiplication tables right.
And so the mad tea party began
with
riddles and stories,
a
substitution of variables,
inverse
relationships,
and karacterz standing still, stuck at 6 p.m.
And I am a white rose you're painting red
because, you
say, it's your favourite colour.
But I am purple, I tell you,
though you
raise your brush of red
not caring
that I bleed
or that
the tarts are stolen
as the
Cheshire Cat grins in space.
A peace and justice advocate for more than three decades, Gayle has worked to further multicultural and interfaith collaboration, provide care and support in the gay community, promote prevention of violence and sexual abuse and ameliorate healing for survivors. She holds an MDiv in theological studies from Trinity Lutheran Seminary in Columbus Ohio and is recipient of the Anna Seidler Award for Systematic Theology, 1988.
One of her poems was commissioned for the Fair-Well to Violence event in San Antonio, Texas in 1995, and she has written liturgy and presided as Celebrant for gatherings of the National Association of Mental Illness and the National Hispanic Ministries Conference for the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America. She has worked as both a print and broadcast journalist, Press Secretary for the Democratic Party and Get Out the Vote in Texas, and co-authored a paper on Spirituality and Health, published in the Australian Health Review, March 2010. Her poem, "Wonderland," received the PROD award from Australian Poetry in 2011.
In addition to poetry, Gayle is writing a novel, sings and plays guitar and dabbles in photography, art, quantum physics, string theory, and cosmology. She has a passion for theatre, nature, Space, cats, coffee, chocolate, cooking, Spanish language and culture, human rights and the dignity of all creatures.