When the Dogs Bite

Thursday, 25 June 2026

25th June 2026

heat wave

the dog needs to leave

cooler outside

"I'm dead," said the ghost,

but he hadn't a tongue

or lips to shape words

or his teeth or a lung

so all he could do

was to move through the air

and make people feel cold

if they're standing there.

Did I mention at all

he's invisible, too,

so he cannot be seen

when he looks out of you.

Wednesday, 24 June 2026

24th June 2026

birthday lad

"He looks like a monkey"

but we love him

Such a Nice Girl

It's very good to have a pet

a puppy or a mog;

people hear me talking

and assume it's to the dog.

I never disabuse them

of the notion that they hold

for better they don't know the truth

or else they snub me cold.

I'm taking to a demon

standing here, right next to me

it's not my fault your innocence

denies the chance to see.

The devils live around us

and they've been here all along

they're drawn to all the mayhem

and they love the dance and song.

I only tell you this because

that Doctor said to, please:

He thinks I have disorders

but his demon disagrees.

Tuesday, 23 June 2026

23rd June 2026

personal disappointment

tempered by understanding wives

best life

Thrice Times

Two youngish lesbians live in a Boot

and one wears some overalls; one wears a suit;

Overall lady is jokey and jolly

but suit wearing lady earns most of the lolly.

Suit wearing girl goes to work every day

and helps other ladies who come out as gay.

Overall Girl is a plumber, they say,

and empties the shitters of women who pay.

They live in a flat when the weather is cold

and dress to be warm for the boiler is old.

On weekends they stay in their big double bed

and one watches telly while the other has head.

They live in a tent when the weather is hot

and do crafting and drumming and play music a lot.

Suit lady has showers in communal mills

while Overalls practices frottaging skills.

Weekly they call on their favourite queen

who asks who they've done and where have they been.

She goes with them both to a dancing club rage

where ladies and boys all take turns on the stage.

At Christmas their flat is a rainbow delight

where everyone gathers for New Year's eve night.

On birthdays they gift each other some socks

and swap between roles with detachable cocks.

There may be a moral to this happy pair

but what it might be I have not a care

I merely relate what I see of my friends

for they make their own odds and they fill their own ends.

Footnote: This started out as a rhyme for children, but on reflection, I'll not enter it in the Under-Six category.

Monday, 22 June 2026

22nd June 2026

far too extreme:

my extra-wide monitor

and longsightedness

Cherries from France

A quarter-pound of cherries

cost me ninety-seven p

Another month and I can eat

the cherries on my tree.

Unless the blackbirds eat them

them I'll have to buy some more

they really are delicious

when I get them to my door.

I spit out all the cherry stones

into a handkerchief

for several grammes of arsenic

await the foolish eating thief

That's only if you bite the stones;

release the almond flavour

better to just swallow them

and choke upon the favour.

I had a friend, a little boy

who ground up all his pits

and baked them into fruit cake

for his father's angry fits.

And when his daddy passed away

the doctor wrote a note:

'He died of natural causes

with a cherry in his throat.’

Sunday, 21 June 2026

21st June 2026

money worries

it's like the old days

don't look!

Talk2Me

I love that you're so clever

you really, really are

the very top of your career

and drive a Jaguar.

I love that you're hard-working

and strive to pay the bills

and pay off all those fucking debts

despite your being ill.

I love that you're so loving

and know that I am yours;

I love that I'm your Number One

among your paramours.

Saturday, 20 June 2026

20th June 2026

If not an artist

I would have so much room

*swamped by materials*

Home of the Rich, Land of the Poor

She writes of woes and petty wars

that swell against these island shores

and ebb, she hopes to some degree,

to fuck right off back out to sea.

For rhetoric has taken hold

by oligarchs of wealth we're told

to hate the people they despise

and legislate against the wise

to make the thinkers flee the Isle

so moneymen can clap and smile

and rub each other's engorged cocks

and sniff at JK Rowling's socks.

They've made their money buying shares

of gas and water, railway fares

then put the prices out of reach

of common folk. they poor they teach

to be alive is good enough

and suffering is Godly stuff

so let them freeze and starve and pray

their fascist lords will let them stay

Deported by the Rich men panel

to drown within the English Channel.

Friday, 19 June 2026

19th June 2026

unexpected sale

of a makeshift clothes hanger

Gym bench, twenty quid

Legislation for Sale

legislation against transgender care

but lower marital age for girls to twelve

with no upper age for the grooms

as long as it's men with girl brides

and not old ladies with young boys

or same gender marriages.

Ban puberty blockers

but promote child beauty pageants;

dress five-year olds as whores

but penalise the real ones.

Stop transwomen using the loo

but let rich old men

to oversee young girls' changing rooms

and apply their standards of beauty.

Shout down gender affirming surgeries

but give discounts for breast enhancements

and Botox injections; Stop inoculations

because one in ten thousand go wrong

but takes away the medical assistance

when they contract formerly rare diseases;

drop the health safety limits of food

but allow poisons to enter the water system;

and cover up the screwworm in Texas reared cattle

because it jumps to humans

and people will stop buying the meat.

Thursday, 18 June 2026

18th June 2026

stand-up comedian

promised arresting officers

of nothing funny

I Have Never Seen an Angel

I can tell when you're about to die;

not far in advance;

an hour at most, or a minute more

because I see the demons waiting

like pigeons around a young boy

who hods a bag of corn in Trafalgar Square.

Like the boy

the demons are waiting for the body

to toss the soul in the air;

casting lots to see who tastes it first

and carries it to Hell.

I have never seen an angel.

Wednesday, 17 June 2026

17th June 2026

wheelchair defence:

try to run down the stairs

they can't follow

Louisiana Gothik

The stench of eggs

burned black on a lit stove

while four under-tens watch a cartoon dog

on a thirty-two inch telly.

The youngest is crying

because their mum is in the bathroom

with a locked door

and her boyfriend has driven away.

She's dead, of course;

a single gunshot to the head

at point-blank range

with her singed hair stuck to the muzzle

of a 'forty-five pistol

with tooled leather handgrip

when he fled from the scene.

Tuesday, 16 June 2026

16th June 2026

unwanted DMs

after I write a poem:

"be my dog"

After Rossetti

forget me fast when I am gone

and laid to rot in mother earth

just as I was upon my birth.

Below the gracious moon and sun.

Forget me fast and burn my work

It was not valued when I, alive,

would paint upon a canvas strive

to bring forth beauty from the murk.

It you would me recall at all

the let it be for I was kind

and saw the best in those of mind

and made some laugh with words well writ;

Better you live for yourself

than mourn a girl who didn't fit.

Monday, 15 June 2026

15th June 2026

Honeysuckle

sparks and buzzes when trimmed

oops

After Marlowe

Come live with me and be my dog

through woods and valleys we will slog

along the edge of farmer's fields

but leashed when sheep are in the weald.

I'll pick thy poop from where it lies

in earthen friendly bags with ties

and towel thee dry when thou art wet

and hold thy paw when at the vet.

And I will make thee comfy beds

and lock thee not in outside sheds

and never hurt thee with intent

and never charge thee any rent.

A morning meal of meat and rye

will set the up for walks in style

and homeward bound, I give thee ham

for thou lies patient as a lamb.

And evening meal, the same again

and daily treats just as and when

and if these promises thou move

come live with me and be my love.

Sunday, 14 June 2026

14th June 2026

genre binge

other people's Hell

films and novels

Sliding into My DMs

He sends a message

but it's a private one,

in reply to a public post

and it raises suspicion.

It's just a 'hello'

but if I reply, is that an invitation to intercourse?

I don't want to make friends,

I was just being helpful

on a community forum

and the tiny thumbnail of me

makes me look vaguely attractive

because you can't see the wrinkles.

I'm sure he's a lovely young man:

he tells me so himself,

three of four times a day

but the only time I like to put my arm around a man

is to choke him from behind.

Saturday, 13 June 2026

13th June 2026

A&E

five hours of waiting

bird song

Bow (Wow Wow)

"There's something going on," he says,

his clipped English softened by the soft hills

of Derbyshire's rolling landscape

and I look out and yes,

there a people in the street

standing outside their houses.

I join the neighbours and ask

the funeral procession for a local lad

is due to pass at ten A.M.

We watch the hearse pass by,

an undertaker walking ahead to stop the traffic;

the children at the infant's school

all waving goodbye

and the neighbour cries

because his dog has just died, too.

Friday, 12 June 2026

12th June 2026

morning face licks

three hours of sleep

brings dogwalk time

Sign O' the Times

We don't ask what is wrong?

We ask "how are you?"

and expect the answer 'Fine, thanks.'

It is considered impolite

to say 'no,' and detail the pain

in all your left diodes,

and at two A.M.

when a woman walks into A&E

with a serious head wound

and her boyfriend says 'she fell over,'

everyone immediately checks his knuckles.