When the Dogs Bite

Monday, 23 March 2026

23rd March 2026

dawn chorus

sparrows, magpies, thrushes, crows

and Cookie

Every Note Wrong

Throwing away three things every day

at least, I'm doing my best to,

and sometimes I count a box of old cables

as three things and feel guilty

as if it doesn't count as three

because they were in one box;

but yesterday I thought I heard the scrap merchant

so I took out all the old stools

all the rusted baking trays,

the really annoying wind chime from the back door

and the case of a gaming computer from the loft

but it was just the kid at Eighty-four

playing a trumpet with his bedroom windows wide

and it was so bad all the neighbours came out

to see what trouble he was in.

Sunday, 22 March 2026

22nd March 2026

small dogs

desperate for attention

mind games

Unrestrained

Sue passed her driving test in the mid-seventies

and bought a Ford Escort van

against my father's advice

for he was a lifelong mechanic

and hated cars of every sort.

She had the rear panels removed, replaced by windows

so it looked like a white hearse,

but she drove it everywhere

with her Welsh Border Collie

as a front seat passenger and developed the habit

of throwing her left arm across the cab

whenever she braked

to stop him hitting his nose on the dash.

Saturday, 21 March 2026

21st March 2026

world poetry day

bringing marital harmony

in Wales

With Covered Head

Mother’s gloves were worn for church

Sunday mornings, Easter, Christmas;

a thirty minute walk down Callow Hill

where Protestant women slept away the morning

then up Bear Hill, steep and penitent

the Anglican St Lawrence's glowering

across the timelocked village,

through the graveyard to the kissing gate,

clanging iron-on-iron to the cinder part

between fields of horses from the wealthy people

with BMWs and Jaguars and second houses

and a timeshare in Benidorm,

to the old infant's school, abandoned and converted

into a community hall for Catholics

to gather for morning mass, confession, communion.

Then back on with the gloves,

lace in summer, fur in winter

for the long walk home

wrapped in the smell of incense and mothballs

and the communion wafer

stuck to the roof of our mouths.

Friday, 20 March 2026

20th March 2026

sunshine after the rain

the siren call of Greensleeves

from the next street

Windowless Rooms

I used to think them carved,

those ancient picture frames in my grandfather's house --

we used to call it a garage because they built a new house

in front of the old one and let it fall to rot

and by the time they died and we moved in,

the first floor had fallen in, leaving a time-stamped wall

of the original bedrooms, and the flour room

where his bakery loaded sacks from canal barge transports.

The picture frames held prints,

commercial engravings of old paintings,

mildew-spotted and marked with rust spots

from the ancient nails of splinterwood backing,

but the carvings came off in the damp,

where the plaster went soft and crumbled

in the passage of long years.

Mum showed them to an antique dealer

who gathered all the frames in good condition,

with a promise to deliver the proceeds of the sales

from his prestigious Bromsgrove shop.

It wouldn't make them rich,

but it might buy them a new stove for the kitchen.

If she was alive today,

she'd be sending iTunes gift cards to cultured voices

from the 'Microsoft' factory in Kolkata.

Thursday, 19 March 2026

19th March 2026

morning light

three dogs take turns

in the sunny bit

Coastal Path

Maybe if I was younger --

or maybe when I'm older and care less --

I'll take a walk around the coastal path;

twenty-six hundred miles

around the coastline of England*

but for now, I prefer the comforts of home,

and the warm bodies around me.

Maybe when I'm old and homeless

I'll walk the Coastal Path.

*excludes Scotland and Wales

Wednesday, 18 March 2026

18th March 2026

early dogwalk

watching the sunrise

factory smoke

Tinker Taylor

Sunday dinner on the posh table

set out in the dining room

among the ironing and the fish tank.

No tureens of vegetables

or great chunk of roasted meat;

that makes more washing up

and after cooking all morning

that's my mum's job as well.

If we're luck there's a pudding:

satsuma meringue pie

or tinned prunes and custard.

We count the pips.

Tuesday, 17 March 2026

17th March 2026

casual remark

about my chairdrobe.

Instant decluttering.

My flatmate Richard

tells me there's a job going

at the carpark where he works

and I apply.

An interview with Nadine

and I secure the job

Richard offers a personal recommendation

and I get a yellow vest.

I start on day shifts

Temple Street car park

open by seven AM

and close twelve hours later

a fourteen hour shift four days a week

sitting in a sunshine laden wooden cube

with a cash box and ticket machine

I learn to take abuse

and relish the one-minute-over tickets

where they have to pay the day rate.

Now the car park chain

has gone into administration

and I think of my old teammates

Whatever happened to Julie?

I never had a nervous breakdown

like I did at the next job along.

NCP Closes