When the Dogs Bite

Tuesday, 21 October 2025

21st October 2025

good week for food

but I've put on FOUR pounds

morning shock

I’ve been thinking about this non-stop, but I still haven’t done it

I swear that I was just about to do it

I got distracted by this other task

and even though you've called me out, just sit

and I'll put on my new 'attentive' mask.

Wait, tell me what we were just talking about?

I wanted to say something else instead

forgetting this has made me come to doubt

exactly what goes on inside my head.

Everything seems extra-loud this evening

I can't fit any more things in my brain

Executive Disfunction fills my being

I think some thoughts are dropping out again.

I know that I said yes instead of no

but now I cannot bring myself to go.

Monday, 20 October 2025

20th October 2025

TikTok

Why am I even on it?

Irrelevant

Cedarwood and glass

I don't recall "before the greenhouse came"

although I have a memory of work

my "pulling of a garden roller" game

to firm the ground in post-school evening murk.

No time, it seems, before that day of toil

and when my father finished this great worth

full thirty feet and filled with compost soil

his father's butcher's block as doorstep path,

the scent of cedar wood pervaded all,

and filled my growing sensory parade

that even now the smell I can recall

to calm me when my anxious thoughts invade.

An enduring image of my patient mum

pricking out a tray of seedlings in the sun.

Sunday, 19 October 2025

19th October 2025

"No Kings" movement

mobilising Americans

"No Price Andrew," here.

Rituals

My mother shouting from the hall downstairs

her lilting Geordie accent sounding clear

"Ja-ay, time to get up," Jimmy Young cares more

about Radio Two's recipe cheer

as I open sleep-crusted eyes to peek

through misty breath exhaled in freezing air

and pull the quilt up further to my cheek

and whisper "just five minutes more, I swear."

I return to blessed dreams until my mum

shouts for the second time for me to rise

and if she doesn't hear water run

she climbs to pull the sheets in cold surprise.

Then brush my teeth and wash and pull on clothes

and go downstairs for Ready Brek and toasty Aga toes.

18th October 2025

silhouettes

against the first light of dawn

wind turbines

What Defines Us?

Some children under ten are interviewed

for a TV filler on the nightly news

and asked what that think that older people do

and what shows off their age to younger views.

Topping off the list was whining on

about the 'Good Old Days' when they were young

as if the past had never been and gone

with all the boring things of which they sung.

'Gardening' and 'drinking tea' came next

with radios and TV schedule pages

and all the aches and pains in backs and legs

knitting scratchy clothes and sleeping ages.

Ninth upon the list was 'have a weather moan'

and last was doing crosswords on your own.

How to tell if someone is old

Friday, 17 October 2025

17th October 2025

old watercolour

obtaining a new lease of life

disposable ephemera

The Gay Unicorn

Older, the lonely teen that I became

spent far too long in bed with just my thoughts

and books to keep me just this side of sane

fantastic worlds that my attention caught.

The novels Alan Dean Fosters wrote

let my imagination eager slide

from Star Trek and Alien to dote

'til Spellsinger and self-pleasure did collide.

Anthropomorphic people of that world

became the special place within my mind

where specific fetishes unfurled

and led my thoughts some darker paths to find.

But none more strange that poor dad was torn

was my rejection of the gender I was born.

Thursday, 16 October 2025

16th October 2025

hospital trip

DK can't drive afterwards

dilated pupils

Robbie Burns Dick

"What was your favourite way to travel?" asked

the cards I bought to prompt my memory

but as I've said, the lack money tasked

us walking two-plus miles to shops, you see.

Thus I got well used to Shanks' Pony

though took the bus the seven miles to school

with bus pass issued by a council crony

who treated claimants like a peasant fool.

We went by train for fortnights in the summer

from Birmingham to Newcastle and back

with orange squash and Beano comic Bumper

and egg and chips for tea at Nana's flat.

My favourite view remains a comfort giver:

seeing Tyne Bridge as we cross the river

Wednesday, 15 October 2025

15th October 2025

morning song

as I descend the stairs

dog barking

Beach Days

Days at the beach? A rare occurrence when

I was a child, but once upon a time

we would get the train from Newcastle, then

get off at Whitley Bay or Mouth of Tyne.

Nana would make sandwiches: eggs and cheese

and sausage rolls and fizzy Tizer drinks

while Mum would do her very best to please

with bucket, spade and shells in whites and pinks.

While Da would spend a shilling for some chairs

and sit with knotted hankie on his head.

While drinking Tetley's from a flask of theirs

with trousers rolled up "for the sand" he said.

Once, we went to Weston Super Mare

we sank into the mud and ne'er again went there.