When the Dogs Bite

Saturday, 22 March 2025

22nd March 2025

Mom! Mom!

DK has come to bed!

Time to get up.

III.I

Her dreams that night are full of prophets

folk tales heard when she was just a child

spoken by old men over the coffins

of people thought immortal, 'til they died.

They told her of her future as a hero

saving all the world from wicked sin;

To raise devotion up from almost zero

a new Kingdom of Heaven ushered in.

While asleep this all sounded quite splendid,

her Ministry available to all

but like all dreams, the morning this one ended

and she knew hubris came before a fall.

Friday, 21 March 2025

21st March 2021

hazy sunshine

Mid-point of the calendar

Ostara

II.X

She coats a dirty two-inch brush with varnish

and transfers the tint over the painted gore

and other substances which tarnish

a once council-installed apartment door.

With dexterous fingers and a well-honed skill

she covers illustrated surface art

eking her depleting varnish 'til

she's protected every single part

and sealed within the stink of pigment made

from body waste and colour dredged from trash

while yellow light reflected from the surface played

upon her memory like a pirate captain's lash.

Thursday, 20 March 2025

20th March 2025

night terrors

at least I know the cause

broken cistern

II.IX

the other half is still unused, although

has formed a skin; it was exposed to air

for nigh a week, though it seems fine, below

the festered plastic surface now formed there.

A scalpel she can use to set it free

although the blade is dulled by spots of rust.

She has a pack of sharps, somewhere, it may well be

long buried under all the mounds of charcoal dust.

The blade will have to do, for now, it glides

with pitted edge through plastic age-dried coat

and frees a disc of semi-clear translucent slime

to release the pungent scent of rendered goat.

Wednesday, 19 March 2025

19th March 2025

early sunshine

the row of foot-high box trees

green teeth

II.VIII

Among her coloured paint and empty tins

is half a can of walnut varnish bought

to seal the frame of early charcoal sins

she made when life studies were taught.

She had used half to mix with pigments found

around the flat and scraped from window ledge

and with her pestle and her mortar ground

into fine powder mould and muck sink-trap dredge;

for like the painters of medieval times

who mixed with albumen the bones of worthy dead

to illustrate some holy text of half-remembered crimes

and fill the reader with some existential dread.

Tuesday, 18 March 2025

18th March 2025

a burst of red

among the spring flowers

crisp packet

II.VII

In her mind she plans a change in her direction

abandoning her love of portraiture;

a solo show of all her new collection

will be the goal for her final year adventure.

No oils in use the painting of her vision

has dried enough for her to treat and seal;

With luck she'll no more suffer such derision

and hopes that her new painting will appeal.

Although today's the Festival of Gifting,

tomorrow brings the opening of stores

and with that comes the spectacle of grifting

with a steady ring of pawn shop's open doors.

Monday, 17 March 2025

17th March 2025

solar lights

unexpected colours

looks like Christmas b

II.VII

Returning to the painting she laid bare

with beauteous but disturbing figure shown

a significant departure from her fare

depicting people and the places she has known.

Now she has recovered from her ills

the painting reeks from pigments she has used

blood and faeces mixed with love and pills

and hairless brushes that she has abused.

She fancies she can hear the figure speak

of life beyond the Wolverhampton taint

and possibilities anew begin to leak

through a body of new work she’s yet to paint.

Sunday, 16 March 2025

16th March 2025

morning frost

under a bright blue sky

frozen dog poo

II.VI

Windows, sans spectators, become bare

eyes that lie unseeing over ash-flecked ice

and into soulless concrete city stare

at social housing tenants, rats and mice.

On the TV, Jimmie Stewart watches life

be less than wonderful without him living

the sad and lonely kids and widowed wife

relive a classic film for Christmas giving.

She turns away from street scene microcosm

and looks down at her hands so full of grime,

her nails ingrained with paint and chalk and charcoal

and wonder what she did in all that time.