Tom Waits (b. 1949) and Kathleen Brennan (b. 1955)

Alice 2002

It is dreamy weather we’re on

You waved your crooked wand

Along an icy pond

With a frozen moon

A murder of silhouette crows I saw

And the tears on my face

And the skates on the pond

they spell

Alice I disappear in your name

But you must wait for me

Somewhere across the sea

There’s a wreck of a ship

Your hair is like meadow grass

On the tide

And the raindrops on my window

And the ice in my drink

Baby all I can think of

Is Alice Arithmetic arithmetock

I turn the hands back on the clock

How does the ocean rock the boat

How did the razor find my throat

The only strings that hold me here

Are tangled up around the pier

And so a secret kiss

Brings madness with the bliss

And I will think of this

When I’m dead in my grave

Set me adrift and I’m lost over there

And I must be insane

To go skating on your name

And by tracing it twice I fell through the ice

Of Alice

There is only Alice

Considerations for Critical Thinking and Writing

1. FIRST RESPONSE. How would you characterize the relationship between the speaker and Alice?
2. Interpret all of the imagery having to do with ice and water as a way of articulating the poem’s theme.
3. Love and death are two of the great subjects of literature. What is the relationship between them in this poem?

Connection to Another Selection

1. Compare this poem to Edgar Allen Poe’s “Annabel Lee” in terms of the motifs of obsession, naming, and death.