When the Dogs Bite

Tuesday, 16 September 2025

16th September 2025

house clearance

with filled skip outside

old carpet

freshwater mussels in an almost-still

canal; the only motion within sight

slow and languid; a stickleback's gill

beneath the onslaught of a parasite.*

Raised on TV shows of Saturday morns

where pearls were treasures of the palest hue

and lauded under Tarzan films in jungles born

we thought the cleansing mussels oysters too.

Alas the bullies that I thought my friends

who introduced me to these get-rich schemes

had dark motives for even darker ends

and pushed me under foetid water; screams.

Sunshine on rippled water, from below,

as far away as angels as to Hell I go.

*Digenean trematodes

Monday, 15 September 2025

15th September 2025

garden work

aborted due to downpour

barking dog

My mum believed in a Catholic God

and did her best to nurture such belief

into her children, though one, the little sod

she called (me) made her sick to her back teeth

For unlike her other girls this was a wayward child

despised by all the other local kids

remained alone and running free and wild

and roaming miles to cause mischief amidst

the unsuspecting adults of the nearby towns

be selling favours of the sinful kind

and stealing from department stores the gowns

and trinkets tempting an enquiring mind.

And in despair, when brought home by police again

enrolled them in a Catholic school that punished sin with pain.

Sunday, 14 September 2025

14th September 2025

bad dream

stumbling to the bathroom

drunk or minor stroke?

How sweet the scent of summer's Timothy

and soft the pollen falling from the tips

my mind detached and dreaming of the sea

while my skin is bruised and kneaded by your lips.

Less pleasant is the smell of your Brylcreem

and even now the stink of your Old Spice

cologne still clogs my nostrils in the dark

of nightmare lands where you still live, though once or twice

I found the will to twist away and bark

"I have to go - my father will await

his Friday fish and chips from Village Fryer,"

and with a shove or kick you make me late.

But mostly I will let you violate

my teenage flesh for I am Catholic apostate.

Saturday, 13 September 2025

13th September 2025

Charlie Kirk

becomes a far-right martyr

London's fascist rally*

Laddie was the first dog I ever knew

a collie cross my parents got from friends

everything they owned became a toy to chew

including several neighbours at the end.

Although poor, they both worked like the Dickens

to feed and clothe the children that they raised

but because mum was terrified of chickens

they sold off all the livestock they had saved.

The dog often escaped through gaps in hedges

and stole often from the village butcher's shop

and so when not indoors my dad gave pledges

that the dog would be chained up, to thieving stop.

Alas, the dog got free and ran away

or so I thought, until my father's dying day.

*The Man Behind the Flags

Friday, 12 September 2025

12th September 2025

workshopping defence

leads to a bad dream

sore arm

"The Face of Evil," is claimed by The Sun

a newspaper with an ill repute

known more for its pages of tits and bums

than for reporting of anything close to truth.

They refer, of course, to the grainy pic

of a suspect escaping the scene

of the death of Republican bringer of schtick

Charlie Kirk, who was famously mean.

The Mail, slightly better but still no less Tory,

extends further the rhetoric of bans

with a wild speculation that's only a story

of shell casings marked up as pro-Trans.

Far from the portrait of evil they claim

"Chaotically Good," the assassin, unnamed.

Thursday, 11 September 2025

11th September 2025

Charlie Kirk shot dead

What terrible news to hear!

British deadpan face

And when my mother died, the neighbours called

to show their sympathy, and thus revealing

to be generous in poverty, appalled

at Britain's Fascist front appealing

to the nation's post-war boom of kids

to usher in a wave of Backing Britain pride

and handing out a shiny badge amidst

the racist rhetoric of Enoch Powell's side.

During the war she'd laboured long and hard

in Tyneside factories to aid the fight

and make munitions for Allied men to guard

our shores against the threat of Axis might.

She would be saddened now to find another rise

in xenophobic Saint George flags from lampposts flied.

Wednesday, 10 September 2025

10th September 2025

morning self defence

the introduction of Silat

knife defences

A transwoman born in the sixties bright era

denied me the knowledge of how to be me

how to explain how I felt any clearer --

my parents had not the knowledge to see.

Crossdressing men were the subject of humour:

Pantomime dames and the goggle box comics;

misogynist men sprang up like a tumour

on culture idylls in a world post-atomic.

No wonder I loved all the Pythonesque Monty;

Frank Spencer in trouble for wearing a frock;

Jack Lemmon's Daphne or Wilde's mad Aunty

and Dame Edna Everage running amok.

Richard O'Sullivan gave me a reason to pose;

to be gay with abandon and wear what I chose.