George Dunlop Leslie, British
GIRL: “Let Me Get This Straight. I’m Not Allowed To Take Candy From Strangers.“
MOTHER: “That’s Right, Dear.”
GIRL: “Except For Tonight, When We Make It a Sport?”
MOTHER: “Exactly.” ca. 1879
Oil on canvas
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Info about this artist is pointed to by the 2nd comment and its reply at a prior blog entry.
Oops. My 3rd comment and its reply.
/// Alice, next to her Mom, snuggles close
on the couch, but the girl seems morose.
Her Mom can’t understand,
that she’s ”in Wonderland,”
from a small lithium overdose.
/// It’s her secret, which no grownup knows,
“Wonderland” is a place Alice goes
in her mind. She will wander
when “real life” gets beyond her.
There, at will, the girl shrinks or she grows.
/// Alice noticed that adults will gawk
when she says she’s heard playing cards talk,
so, her head snugly pillowed
where her Mom’s bosom billowed,
she keeps mum, not a peep or a squawk.
/// On the couch, Alice placed her doll there,
on its back, “in an analyst’s care.”
It must talk of its dreams
and suppress any screams
when it thinks of its deep dark despair.
/// The poor dolly is missing a shoe,
so it knows that a punishment’s due.
“A good parent is strict,”
Alice learned. “I’ll inflict
mental pain, because mercy’s taboo.”
/// And the cure for a doll that’s possessed
isn’t scripture, as some might suggest.
When foul demons infest
children’s toys, they’ve transgressed.
Go to Rome. By the Pope, have it blessed.
/// Yet, despite her child’s half-asleep pleading,
Mother stubbornly goes right on reading.
Alice may be bored now,
but when grown she’ll know how
adults have fun without risk of breeding.