When the Dogs Bite

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.

Tuesday, 14 October 2025

14th October 2025

An opponent's strength

offers key to their weakness

pivots and levers

July 1979

I never left the country ere a teen

with financial hardship parents we had grown

and ne'er across the borders had I been

only the breadth of England had I known.

By the summer of my sixth-form schooling years

my friend and I spent one whole week away

with Mother gone, I overcame my tears

and planned with him a Scottish holiday.

My father, in his van, started the trip

and took us to the M6 junction four

from there we stuck out thumbs and hitched a lift

and got as far as Geordie family door.

We got to Crianlarich in two days

then fell out and went our separate ways.