When the Dogs Bite

Friday, 13 March 2026

13th March 2026

shelves stacked

with knick-knacks and object d'art

Garden wall.

Decluttering

How many books did I discard

when we Kondo'd that first time.

Was it eight years ago? Ten?

Probably a thousand, maybe two

and that's in addition to the thousands

I left behind when moving house

scraped up by the council men

and consigned to a landfill.

Now I have more again

and but none are replacements for those I lost.

Here are tomes of self-defence,

of the works of artists great and small,

and the words of other poets

on whose shoulders I stand.

I can part with none,

at least, not yet,

but all of my Bibles are digital.

Thursday, 12 March 2026

12th March 2026

decluttering

three more things to go

anxiety

Unstalking

I learn her routines;

what car she drives

where she works

the times of her shifts

and the patterns of days on/days off.

I know where she lives,

where she gets groceries,

what pets she has

(dog, cat, a number of fish)

how many times the Amazon driver comes

and the postman.

I know the websites she uses,

her social media accounts and

I follow them all under a name

she'd never recognise.

I know her family, her friends,

the colleagues she likes

and those she avoids;

I know when she walks her dog

and all the routes she might take.

I know where her lover lives

what his wife does when he's out;

which hotel they rent a room in.

All this on a web diagram

pinned to a wall in my basement,

so I never,

ever,

have to speak to her in person.

Wednesday, 11 March 2026

11th March 2026

political sonnets

languishing at the bottom

a pile data trash

Unloved

When does an artist become a hoarder?

Everything I have might come in useful some time;

an assemblage, a sculpture;

perhaps just the subject

of still life with vacuums

or self portrait with unworn hats.

One day it will all have to go.

But not today.

I might need it.

Tuesday, 10 March 2026

10th March 2026

running outside

dumping all the bags in time

bin lorry cometh

He Pays Billions (to Himself)

And now we see the reason for the war

was just another money-making scheme

the Family will buy another core

of businesses to profit from the dream.

Proteus will make a reverse-merger

with Aureus Greenway Holdings, owned by Trump,

making drones to push the war much further

with a multi-billion Pentagon-backed bump.

In a surprise to nobody at all

Proteus is also backed by firms

backed by Eric, Junior and call

Unusual Machines all run by these few worms.

Now drones are all the rage for strife,

how disposable it is, this human life.

Trump Bros Back a Drone Company as the Pentagon Prepares to Spend Billions

Monday, 9 March 2026

9th March 2026

early birdsong

a halo of orange

in the streetlight

White Phosphorus

In Lebanon where children once had schools

an new Israeli airburst is deployed,

to fall on streets and thus create the pools

of white-hot chemicals to see their homes destroyed.

Amidst the dust and flame, still some survive

though many of them die, their faces seared

with flesh burnt down to bone as fires thrive

where Human Rights have all but disappeared.

Now Israel, once thought the land of God,

attempts the genocide of poor Iran

while red-hat 'Muricans destroy the sod

and magnify the slaughter they began.

So human rights aside, the only end I see

is depose the arsehole in the Land of Free.

Sunday, 8 March 2026

8th March 2026

recording video

I should really check it works

before I post it.

Ten-minute appointment

to take a vial of blood for testing.

I don't know what they're testing for.

Maybe oestrogen? Cholesterol?

It could be chlorophyll levels for all I know:

I trust the doctors know why they asked for it,

and I hope it doesn't delay my prescriptions.

Prescriptions for statins, for thyroid underefficiency;

one for depression (it never went away),

another for blood pressure

A prescription for hormone levels

(I moan, I am a whore)

and one to stop my stomach bleeding

from all the others.

The drive back takes another hour.

All the traffic is at a standstill

roads closed without diversions or traffic lights.

At least it's just petrol it's costing,

and a piece of my shortened life.

If I was an American

I'd be facing a ten thousand dollar bill

and be automatically homeless,

but this is Britain,

where medicine is a social necessity;

not communism, just basic humanity.

In the 'States, six bodies are returned

from a war begun entirely for financial gain

while the leader of the country wears a baseball cap

and talks about his new curtains.

Saturday, 7 March 2026

7th March 2026

jiu-jitsu training

leaves me without self-defence

pavement pothole

RFK Junior says we don't need vaccines

because the worm in his brain

said they're a waste of time.

Angiostrongylus cantonensis has reached California

Rat lungworms mature, mate and lay eggs

inside a rodent's lungs.

And not just rats: Possums and Wallabies,

beavers and people.

larvae in the rats lungs

coughed into the rodents throat

swallowed and pooped out

waiting to be eaten by slugs and snails.

Rats and chickens, beavers and pigs

all eat the infected snails

and then people eat the affected meats

and the larvae party

in the carnivore's brain.

we don't need vaccines any more

just a healthy appetite

and a meat-puppet body

for the worms.

A Brain-Invading Worm Has Reached California