One-Legged Flamingo [rev.] Poem by Margaret Alice Second

One moment I'm ensconced in chocolate dreams, the next
a German text crosses my desk; I was so unprepared - not
at my best, the awful document was undressed in PDF, I'll
need to retype the unholy text of its entirety

My desire is to sink into endless dreams and let a magical
approach take care of the German mess; with every page
stamped REJECTED, the small print needing a magnifying
glass, & to mark the moment when I lost my mind I made

And sipped hot chocolate while staring at the text, hoping
the magical approach which opposes thin, cold rationality
would safe me from my fate to suffer the German terms
with one only correct, technical meaning, which requires

Using the Dictionary of Agriculture, Legal, Commercial
and Political Terms: the excitement is killing me, there
is no help from Magical Approaches, so painfully slow I
construct tables, magnifying numbers, typing words

Balancing like a one-legged flamingo, left foot resting on
my desk, back bent while right foot carries all the weight,
changing legs & falling amidst laughter, bleeding thumb
offering a happy moment of respite - & heroically I tackle

My job in the trenches of this war on foreign languages
and the horrors they hold - Vorausichtliche Ankunft as
estimated time of arrival; what heresy is this, why can't
everybody write in English, what a great time we'd have

Communicating instead of laboriously translating, much
easier to play games instead of having Hanlie learning
Chinese - what a feat - but I would not give up Arabic
with its letters magically changing as I type, here goes

Lunch is over and it's time to start shooting down the
German Generals and set up friendly English soldiers
in place of the German administrative form that begs
the question - does officialise leave room for Goethe,
Schiller - singing Die Lorelei und Heute Ans Bord?