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Best Karate Still Inside

 

It bothered her that they had used an adult

Actress to voice the lead character in

The Dutch TV version of Pippi Longstocking

The screeching and squawking

Mockery of girlish speech

Gave her headaches

And made the paint peel

 

The Puritan Roundheads of the English Civil War

Smashed the faces off statues in churches

She felt she had been cheated out of art

When she got home

From her latest binge on sacred buildings

She imagined how the faces might have looked

Often they found a place in her dreams

Where the 17th century Taliban couldn’t reach

 

She was pissed off whenever the BBC warned her

A programme contained strong language

She was as averse to euphemism as she was to cheap stair carpets

 

She would not let the expressions ‘drie keer niks’

Or ‘doe even normaal’ pass her lips

 

She had four pets:

 

            A monkey named Idiom

            A snake called Slang

            A parrot, Paradox

            And a pig by the name of Ham

 

Trapped in the web of love

They co

-existed

  

 

 

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