The Bedside Alice

or "Daddy you should have told me you were already taken"

The first 10 pages of a book i wrote in th 70ies while living in Los Angeles.

THE FAIRY TALES I READ WHEN I WAS THREE
PERSIST IN COMING BACK ON ME.
THEY WERE FOR ADULTS
IN US CHILDREN.
A WONDERFUL MIRROR
TO SEE LIFE IN.

A WONDERFUL TREAT FOR MY SEVEN YEAR SPIN.
A POSITIVE ESSENCE OF THE WORLD WE’RE IN.

I KNEW IT THEN. I KNOW IT NOW
THOSE FAIRY TALES WERE ALL SOMEHOW,
A PRICE I PAID FOR FEELING HEIGHT,
SUPERIOR, ABOVE IT ALL
READING ADULT TALES WHEN I WAS SMALL –

UNDERSTANDING THE INNER PACE
OF PERSUING
A TIME
OR SPACE
OR

PLACE.


OR


There are two alternatives:

1) FANTASY
2) VACUUM


Footnote:
Reality doesn’t exist
It’s just the projection of someone’s fantasy
Sometimes it matches your own and you feel REAL
Too often



THE DAY ALICE STUMBLED INTO WONDERLAND
(once again)
and
instead of the dream
found
DISNEYLAND



where Prince Charming is an out-of-work actor
where the Seven Dwarfs wanted Show White to give
them a blow job
where
reality was making a lot of bread and Alice was
offered a porno movie because she had a “good body”
and
where Humpety Dumpety will never get-it-together
again
because
he’s just a rotten egg in drag


TITLES:



ALICE IN DISNEYLAND

ALICE IN DISNEYLAND SEARCHING FOR KANSAS

ALICE’S SEARCH FOR KANSAS

AND LEWIS CARROLL WAS JUST ANOTHER CHILD MOLESTER

AND PRINCE CHARMING IS A HALLOWEAN DRAG QUEEN


DREAM ON, ALICE ....


THE STORY:

"Tell me a story" the little girl said.
"Give me a reason to get out of bed".

"The time is coming, help is near", when I didn't know the answer, i was dramatically clear

but then she told me the story,
she was very very clear.


And the answer loomed up

"I am still here".

ALICE’S TIME TRIP:

TODAY – I want something
TOMORROW – I know I’ll want something else
so
LET’S PRETEND it’s
TOMORROW
And I want something else


YESTERDAY, I loved you
TODAY, oh god, today, I don’t
TODAY is YESTERDAY
And
I LOVE YOU
(yesterday)


I’m losing TIME
By blocking NOW
Going from half past seven to midnight
In a flash
Losing 4and a ½ hours


I’M LATE, I’M LATE FOR A VERY IMPORTANT DATE
Said ALICE on an ACID TRIP one day
And proceeded to trip acidly on.


HOW ALICE LOST HER CREATIVITY:

(a sort of “how I spent my summer vacation”)

You remember that poem, that terrible poem:
“I must go down to the sea again, to the lonely sea and the . . .”
SHIT, that could turn anybody off, couldn’t it???

I mean, they said that’s how you had to write poems –
So I wrote
“I must go down to the sea again. . .”
and I gave up.
I was 7
And I gave up
And tried to write just a little better than
“I must go down to the “
but of course I couldn’t
having no particular need to go to the ___.

Realizing my capitulation, I reversed the process –
I wrote:
I HATE NATURE
Surely rather unpoetic and generally unpopular

And now I write poems like this that are critiques of my poetry

That was the next step
My present step
Out-of-step
I step
As freely as possible
In the confines of my desperate fear
That
JOHN MASEFIELD
Was a Poet-Leaureate

And who, pray tell, AM I ???


This is the complete, unexpurgated account of Alice’s
Coming of age. Everyone kept telling her to GROW UP. . .
So she did.
And above all. . . . .
It was interesting . . . .
If nothing else . . .
It certainly was . .
Interesting.

The beginning:

“tell me, tell me, I want to know. I want to learn. . . .
about life and such. You know, the stuff that life is made of.
The facts. Give ‘em to me straight. No bullshit. Cut the
Crap. TRUTH. Tell me the truth”
said Alice.

YOU HAVE TO GIVE US A LITTLE MORE INFORMATION, first, tell
us about yourself?
said They.

“I’m attractive, intelligent, I’m twenty or so and I’m a
good student. I love to learn. or. As the bright, attractive
young woman said to the stupid, ugly, old man:
TEACH ME MASTER.

A little joke. A little hostility. Alice, is just a little
Freaked out. Alice needs HELP. Bear with her, be patient.
She’s really a good kid.

“I’m really a good kid....I’m just a kid, you know”.

GROW UP ALICE.

O.K. O.K. I’m a good student, and the teacher, daddy, (can
You hear me, daddy?) is, the teacher is irrevocably fashioned
In your image. God is not dead. He lives in the resentment-
Filled psyches of un-habited nuns the world over. Our convent
Is Fantasyland, pandered to and elevated (?) to reality by the male of the species. If you’re Jewish , as I tend to be ,
(Alice, jewish? Why not?) he probably has a beard and kind
eyes . . . .he’s Sigmund Fraud or Henry Miller, the bastard who
views you as a hole to be conquered –

HOLD IT, ALICE. WATCH YOUR LANGUAGE. after all, little girls
Should be seen and not . . . . .well, of course we don’t really mean that, but after all, even little girls who are making
An effort should, well, you know . . .COOL IT.

Alice falls silent. Alice can’t speak.

SPEAK UP, ALICE

“- hole to be conquered, or the -“

SHUT UP, ALICE. we’re beginning to ge the idea. You’re a
Foul-mouthed little slut and here we thought you’d come a long way
Baby.