Secret Melodies (R) Poem by Margaret Alice Second

Outside kicking bottles for our long-legged fox terrier until
we both succumb and fall down, my beloved a handyman
fixing taps - as his rugby team lost and the taps drip even
more than before - he takes his frustration out on me and
Mufasa and we hide in the kitchen; nearly time to start on
the Arabic alphabet, keeping the phantom of Afrikaans at
bay as Mme La Pompadour terrorises me with it and -

Sisters Self-righteous and Longsuffering discovered I am
an idiot and thus rewrite everything I've done, breaking my
heart & changing a wonderful world into a nightmare realm
of fire and clanging Iron Maidens spearing my insides until
I'm bleeding and crying on the quiet - I love languages and
Lullaby for Liefstetjie is my favourite of all time - but since
Afrikaans has been taken hostage by the Holy Sisters -

I flee for my life, our mother tongue taken captive by Nazi
racism & pedantic pedagogues leaves me and poet Koos
DuPlessis in a private world of secret melodies…