When the Dogs Bite

Saturday, 28 February 2026

28th February 2026

cotton buds

poked into my sister's ear

hospital visit

Rosacea Lenses

losing track of the years

grandchildren shooting upwards

while our own kids stay the same.

Tony is a thirty-six -a black belt

and brilliant guitarist

but in my mind he's still ten

and playing Dungeon Master in the kitchen

Kirsty is fifteen, not forty;

crop tops and belly piercing

sneaking wine before going out

while her almost-adult son

towers over us,

smiling at the camera.

Ash is still seven years old

playing on the garden swing

and cutting the feet off big-sister's Barbies.

They just paid six grand for dentistry

and smiles like an American TV host

set on repeat.

We're in our thirties,

despite the free bus passes

and a need for new glasses.

Friday, 27 February 2026

27th February 2026

books on decision making

but I leave empty-handed

I couldn't choose one

NACRO Training

Alan breaks wind constantly

all day, every day,

"Better out than in," he says

rolling a Golden Virginia

an the liquorice paper he favours.

He's an excellent draughtsman

but nobody befriends him.

James if the man's man

always showing off his muscles

and talking about his wife's body.

He's very pleased with himself

but we all know he be divorced

before the year is out.

Grant is overweight

takes two seats at the workbench

laboriously copies out alphabets

from the Letraset catalogue.

He's a heavy smoker

and thinks his rasping, dry cough

is unrelated to his Bensons.

Charlie is special needs

can't draw for toffee

but had to do a training scheme

or lose his Jobseeker's.

He talks about music all day

and the lady at the fish and chop shop

who gave him a free mini-fish.

Tracy is on Income Support;

a single mom who trains three days a week

while her mum has the baby.

She doesn't smoke

but develops a cough anyway.

This is before the no-smoking-at-work laws came in

She killed herself a year later

because her baby was taken away.

And the manager of the unit

we call the Terminator

because he kicks us off our benefits

if we ever miss a day.

His Black-country accent

"Yow've bin terminated."

Thursday, 26 February 2026

26th February 2026

hoarding remnants

a youth that never was

anxiety dreams

Archeological

plastic flowers

bought to cheer me up

when the voices are crying

I am dismayed by the quality

a problem with shopping online

and these are terrible

I am saddened

by the though these will survive

long after I'm gone

My children

and their children

and the children after them

and these plastic blooms

will still exist

when all our bones are dust

Wednesday, 25 February 2026

25th February 2026

top mount

I've done this a thousand times

add submissions

It's Frothy, Man

I complain that I'm thirsty

so we wait in line for a concession stand

where Dad buys a Cresta for me

and a Coke for my sister.

I'm fourteen, my sister twenty-one

and our dad is about to be fifty.

We do not belong here.

We are at Alton Towers where families come

and though we are a family

we are also not.

This is the first summer without our mom

and Dad's doing his best

to connect with his kids

by renting a car for the week.

We have days out.

We can't go anywhere not nearby,

because of the dogs

and he won't spend a night away

from the bed he shared with her.

We avoid the rides

and look round the gardens instead.

beautiful cedars around manicured lawns

and snap a photo of the three of us,

each behind a different tree.

We don't talk much

there's nothing we can say

to bridge the divide between us all.

I buy a tiny glass bottle as a souvenir

and on the way home

we hear Renaissance on the car radio

and the Northern Lights

will forever remind me of my dead mum.

Tuesday, 24 February 2026

24th February 2026

living room opened

for Cookie's sofa bed

Widget steals walnuts

Organised Crime

When I was a kid

we used take glass bottles

back to the off-license window

of the Crown at Alvechurch Meadow

tuppence on the beer bottles

tenpence on the litre bottle

and when we needed extra cash

we'd nip around the back

and pilfer the empties from the crates

and buy a Family Bar of Old Jamaica.

The lady behind the counter

guessed what was occurring

and asked where the bottles came from

and I lied and said

we were clearing out the cellar

and has to confess to the priest

before Holy Communion.

Sut surely, I reasoned,

God wanted me to have the money

and offered the opportunity

but no,

It was a test, said the priest,

and you failed.

And now the local shops

lock alcohol behind plastic doors

and meat, and cheese,

and now chocolate;

because what we used to buy for ten pence

is now a fiver or more

and who can afford that?

Chocolate kept in anti-theft boxes as retailers warn it's being stolen to order - BBC News

Monday, 23 February 2026

February 23rd 2026

intent to cycle

the wind is something fierce

and I am lazy

A Reformation

An act of cruelty when I was a child

maybe fifteen or sixteen- after my mother died

and I had taken on the large garden as a project.

When she was still here, and I was wee

I fell into an ant's nest -- now this is Britain,

so we don't have bullet ants or those buggers

who chew their way inside your skin for fun

but we had red ants who bite and sting

and black ants who makes supply lines

into the bags of sugar in the pantry

and spend the whole week depleting the jam-making supplies,

and I fell into the former, of course.

The smell of chamomile lotion still brings to mind

the scabs and welts those ants bestowed.

So rebuilding the high-sloped rockery

I came upon a red ant nest, provoking a ten-year fear

to send me running to the kitchen

and returning with a kettle of boiling water.

I hope their deaths were quick but at the time

it was revenge I was seeking for the crying six-year old inside.

But the next day, when I returned to work some more,

the surviving ants had laid their dead in perfect rows,

as if to display their necropolis to God

and beg the answer "why?"

Sunday, 22 February 2026

February 22nd 2026

broken feet, mended teeth

he gathers the wounded

and loves his best

On Judith Rhead

the 'karaoke queen'

would never score a record deal

or win a TV show

but she was loved in Pembroke

choir singing and caring,

chatting over the garden wall.

her son had problems

moved in to care for her

the window open all the covid winter

"because of her asthma"

absences from church,

from the garden wall,

from her weekly karaoke nights

because she "wasn't well"

and the police had a look

her body in a state

decomposition;

mummification;

a bag tied with yellow twine

over her head.

David Morgan,

devoted son,

ran out of drugs

ran out of money

ran out of patience

and bashed her head in

with a sticky hammer.

if he can't see she's dead

she must still be alive:

she must be alive

for her pension is being cashed

and we can hear the telly on

through the open window.

Son lived with mum's body for months

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/ckg2xn6k2kyo