Interlude: Notes from Wonderland

I thought we might take a breather in this journey, just to describe the moment. By this point, the language has already started to fail. Process is performance. Procedure develops and is enacted on a whim. The institution is living in a strange mix of certainty and incoherence that I don’t have words to name.

This set of poems pauses the forward motion of the collection to recognize that we are through the looking glass. The confusion is not accidental; the contradiction is not a flaw in the system. Everything irrational is working exactly as designed, just not in service of the institution, the students, or the people who sustain it.

I think of these poems as notes taken from inside Wonderland. They don’t advance the story so much as clarify the terrain. They name roles, habits, and survival strategies that make sense only once you stop assuming the place is governed by reason. Some of what appears here is dark. Some of it is dryly funny. None of it is light enough to be whimsical.

Fair warning: this may not be the only pause of its kind. I have found that standing in the middle of the system while it unravels means that understanding comes in stages, just like my grief. For now, I’ll let these notes sit here, after the fiction of process and before the next step, where they can mark the point where recognition finally sets in.

Wonderland?

I didn’t understand that it was Wonderland until I met the Red Queen.

She ruled with authority and status, a wonder to be seen.

Virtues like compassion and integrity were quickly put to bed.

A problem in search of solutions?

Just order “off with their heads.

Along the way in Wonderland, the Queen brought in the Hatter.

To say that she was Mad was to say reality mattered.

She spoke in circles and riddles, a ceaseless drone of chatter

Hoping to find some direction?

Trust me, it won’t happen or matter.

Also living in Wonderland were Tweedledee and Tweedledum.

Argumentative, pedantic, and aggressive, we all lived under their thumb.

Dot the I’s and cross the Ts, twice until you’re numb.

Even when their beat kept changing mid-march

be prepared to parade to their drum.

The others I met in Wonderland were equally mad.

Some because they started that way; others because they had

To adapt, survive, accept the role they must play. 

The Knaves were defined by what others would say.

Rumor and blame  were typically the way.

The Cats learned to simply fade away.

Only their forced grins would stay.

I didn’t understand that it was Wonderland.

Like Alice, I’ve learned I’m not a fan.

Too Much With Us

When you need someone for the academic lead

To fire, reorganize, and make the place bleed,

Hire for hubris and failure to heed

The basic care owed history and need.  

Remember, Lady Shelley, that the monster

Was the maker, not the made. 

You let her manufacture the lies required

Before that one fine morning transpired

When those who led were judged without a hearing,

Authority alone was all that fired.

In Kafka’s world, the ending is most clean:

The accused are guilty having done no wrong.

When all is crumbled and held by chains

But the sneer of cold command remains,

Let the ruins speak where once you reigned,

Just be sure the reports still show a gain.

Build a sculpture of a ring, Ozymandias.

Make sure you can walk through it.

You built your world and gave the damage name

Where loss is measured, suffering reframed,

Each cut reflects a “necessary” choice.

Consequences paid by those without a voice.

Nothing will ever be the same.

Your world is too much with us.

Flat Out Not Here

From the moment she arrived, before a single line was crossed,

The president ensured she and the College got lost.

When the posterboard prez got selected, and she didn’t know what to do,

We watched her family and friends get hired, while other pink slips flew.

She drifted through each Move-In Day, waved once, then disappeared.

Faculty meetings came and went, but she was never near.

When students filled the quad with signs, she vanished in thin air,

An executive outline in cardboard, pretending not to be there.

Authentic questions kept coming; she Neo-dodged each round.

Then warped the campus timeline so truth could not be found.

Who knew confidential searches came with outcomes pre-ordained?

Or that integrity, transparency, and research could all be feigned?

When millions are needed for the mansion, cut women from the rolls!

It’s just a women’s college, why on earth would it need a soul?

In every storm, she closed the blinds and hid behind the door,

Replacing public scrutiny with the secrecy she adored.

The Board applauded the optics, mistaking silence for command,

Too dazzled by the campus cutout, too lazy to understand.

For no matter the chaos, no matter the cost,

The president made sure she and the College got lost.

Travel Light

It used to be the place where thought was brought to bear

From classic to contemporary

Where anyone might dare to

Shoulder the weight with care

Unpack the heavy bag

And offer up a new paradigm.

It used to be the place where leaders valued history,

The world writ large and small.

We sought to understand the mystery

Of human chivalry and misery,

Lift the heavy bag of memory,

And chart a wiser path ahead.

It used to be the sacred place for the young to mature

To try on selves and test ideas

Knowing they were safe, secure -

Free to examine what felt unsure,

To carry the heavy bag of knowledge,

And glimpse their future selves.

But now the bag has been replaced

With something insubstantial, slight.

And where we once were asked to think,

We are now told

To travel light.