You don’t have to be mad to visit here, but it helps

You don’t have to be mad to visit here, but it helps

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Alice in Ballykillduff

Alice fell through a hole in a very odd hedge,
Tumbled past turnips, a cow, and a ledge,
She landed with grace (well, almost—a thud)
In Ballykillduff, face-first in the mud.

She stood and she blinked at the curious crowd—
A goat played the trumpet unusually loud.
A pig sold balloons shaped like clouds and like cheese,
And someone was painting a portrait of peas.

“Where am I?” asked Alice. A sheep in a hat
Replied, “In the village of Ballykillduff! That’s that!”
“We’re preparing,” it said, “for the Sheep Racing Fair,
Where ewes take to flight through the midsummer air!”

She wandered through stalls where the jelly was wobbly,
The fudge slightly rude, and the sandwiches snobbly.
A tractor called Muriel whistled and said,
“Hop on for a tour! Don’t step on my tread.”

She met Grandmother McSnoop who could juggle live frogs,
And a choir of hens that sang sea shanty songs.
Two monks brewed a soda that made her see stars,
And a badger confessed he’d once stolen some jars.

At noon came the races—explosions of wool!
Jetpacks on sheep made the sky rather full.
They looped and they zoomed in a blizzard of fluff,
As Alice cried out, “This is quite mad enough!”

But just as she thought things could not get more strange,
The moon sprouted legs and danced down the lane.
The mayor declared, “That’s our satellite samba!”
And offered her tea served in hats made of llama.

At sunset, the hills all began to recite
Limericks backwards while glowing with light.
The cows held a disco, the ducks held a vote,
And a hedgehog proposed—in a velvet-lined coat.

“Dear Ballykillduff,” Alice whispered with glee,
“You’re wonderfully odd and quite perfect for me.”
Then the beetroot returned and it opened a crack—
“Time to go home, if you want to go back…”

She waved her goodbyes to the sheep and the crowd,
To the tractor, the frogs, and the goose dressed in shroud.
And she whispered as Ballykillduff slipped from view,
“That was stranger than Wonderland—and the scones were quite new.”