When the Dogs Bite

Friday, 27 March 2026

27th March 2026

more rain

looks like indoor jobs today.

Decluttering.

For Sale, Used

Demijohns

seven of them, in glass

three more full ones (costs extra)

and a couple of plastic ones

if that's your style.

Worth a fiver each,

I'm selling three for a tenner.

Twenty each for the full ones

but only to responsible adults

(let's say the jars are twenty quid

and the gallon of wine is free

so I don't break any laws)

And if you don't make wine

you could fill them with coins

before they stop being made

use them for spider habitats

or toenail clippings.

No judgement here.

You do you.

Thursday, 26 March 2026

26th March 2026

old love, rekindled

Bacon, Chagall, Lewty

where's my Oulton?

Tell me Something

Conversation cards

ask what I look for in other people

and mostly it can easy:

Acceptance.

How do you feel about race?

culture? immigration? politics?

How do you feel about homosexuality?

feminism? transgender issues?

Are you religious? If you are,

do you use your Big Book of Rules

to oppress other people

and call it The Will of God?

Do you gloss over rules that should apply to you

and pretend it's okay to molest children

because your God wants More Babies

or He gave you the urge to do so?

I love you,

and the world needs your diversity

but you can Fuck Right Off.

Wednesday, 25 March 2026

25th March 2026

holiday fosterdog

hates having his nails cut

pees everywhere

Clearance II

Did I fail in my current zealotry;

I couldn't think of what to give away

(does anyone want some wine?

I have four gallons and no bottles)

so I spent the last hour of sunshine

sawing off the bottom foot of the garden gate

and replacing it with good solid wood

from the pile of hoarded pallets.

I hadn't finished before the rains came.

My electric drill, sparking.

Tuesday, 24 March 2026

24th March 2026

early bird

a crow collecting nasturtium straw

nest building

Clearance

In the woods

an old mountain bike

covered in mud

rusted gears and flat tyres.

I push it home for an estimate

how much it needs for repair.

Later in the day

I put it out for the scrap man

Keep Britain Tidy

as the government used to say.

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.