When the Dogs Bite

Tuesday, 14 April 2026

14th April 2026

catching a glance

at an overfull skip

moving on

To Wright

I catch an old friend on Insta

and apply for access to the pictures she posts.

It takes a day or two but I get the message

friend request accepted

and I click on her image,

look at her dog and her cat,

one or two of her but she's another person now

one I barely recognise

from the woman with whom I traded messages

once or twice an hour.

She's moved on.

Widowed, married, divorced, married

but still the same, sparkling eyes

and ready wit.

I'm tempted to message

but it's probably best I don't:

I am in her past, and she, mine

there is no need to stir the ashes of friendship

it's enough to know the world

is still graced with her presence.

Monday, 13 April 2026

13th April 2026

frosty morning

I am caught in a sudden shower

cherry blossom

A Bonfire of Vanity

Is life too short to enjoy the wonder?

the play of light on layers of pigment

lay down in an instant

or over a lifetime.

"You can't charge that," they tell me;

"Who would give you seven pounds

let alone seven hundred

or seventy thousand, when it took you

all of five minutes to draw."

However problematic Picasso was

(and I am glad I wasn't his wife)

he was an amazing artist

and I watched a TV interview shortly before he died

where he made a drawing live on film

and asked 30K for it.

"It only took you thirty seconds," the interviewer said,

"How can you want thousands for it?"

And Picasso, with a sad smile, shook his head.

"Thirty seconds?" he said. "It took me forty years."

So I'll keep the paint and the canvasses

and the box of tiny paperworks in the loft

and when I die

(in a few years yet, please,)

the kids can burn the lot.

Sunday, 12 April 2026

12th April 2026

online groceries

because crates of water are heavy

tiny lady delivers

Clippers

She left school at fourteen

disposed of her exercise books

and the essay about Tennyson

and went to work at a stables.

She cycled to work every day

four miles, rain or shine

shovelled manure and boiled tripe

for the boarded dogs

while their owners went to Tenerife

or the Canary Islands.

She learned to ride horses

cross-country and show jumping

worked her way up the competitive ladder

while the girls she was at school with

drove their own cars and left their horses

for her to rub down and clean tack.

And when her mother died

married a man her father's age.

Saturday, 11 April 2026

11th April 2026

new lists

things to tidy, declutter

another box gone

Not a Suicide

She was twenty-eight years old

when she threw herself off a bridge

onto the A90 in Dundee

and was struck by multiple vehicles

Not a suicide

the last chance to escape

after running up there

chased by her husband of two years

who tried to grab her hands.

Not a suicide

abused and beaten

for the last eighteen months

in private

in public

strangled

dragged by the hair

shouted at and punched.

Not a suicide

she would cower and stay silent

made to walk home

after he tried to run her over

Not a suicide

she was terrified of him

but couldn't leave

because he'd kill himself

she messaged her sister

what could she do?

Not a suicide

he was convicted

'culpable homicide' the judge said

but he got just eight years

(to serve at least three)

and three years post-release probation.

Not a suicide

she should have killed him

and saved the two young boys

he raped the following year.

but you need to know

it was Not a suicide

Man jailed for killing abused wife who jumped from bridge

Friday, 10 April 2026

10th April 2026

tarot decks

How many futures do I have?

a whole crate full

Lesson Learned

life lessons never stop

and the one that hit me most

is the one I learned most recently.

I watch too much television

a habit I developed

when I was very young

and there were only three channels

and it all closed down

because the BBC had no taped shows

and couldn't pay the night staff.

In those days there was no Sesame Street;

no Blue's Clues or Counting House

and my father told me I'd rot my brain

with Jackanory or Pogle's Wood

but I watched everything

including, in the days before computers;

when Apollo missions were calculated on lined pads

by black women who weren't allowed

to used toilets for white people

(the more things change, the more

things stay the same),

the Open University;

late nights and early mornings;

dry seminars given by old professors

for people too old to not have jobs.

Now I watch old shows

recorded and sown online

and an old episode of Hoarders

(Brit or American, I don't recall)

was professionals clearing the hoard

of a man who died, unloved,

his life as worn-down as his words,

who drowned in his own house

with lungs full of microplastics.

and the lesson I learned

was that at the end of life

everything that gave you meaning

and marked you as a person who lived

can fit in a shoe box

and a small one at that.

Thursday, 9 April 2026

9th April 2026

Confirm Humanity

the End is just beginning

remember captchas?

The Church that Does What It Says on the Tin.

Robert Smith has gone to Heaven

and will be lonely for a while,

with only some serial killers for company

because they are the only ones now

to take confession before they die.

Robert wasn't a killer

but he was the luckiest man alive

(although he's now happily deceased)

to be baptised a moment before

his death by drowning.

Let us give praise to Cheryl Bartley

the Pastor of Erdington

who gave him the gift

of everlasting life

moments before he drowned

and streamed it live

from a garden pond

in the Life Changing Ministries garden.

Lord Crown Prosecutor we beg thee:

Dismiss the charge of manslaughter

on this dedicated minister

for she bringeth guaranteed ascension

in one affordable package.

Amen.

Pastor charged after man drowned during baptism

Wednesday, 8 April 2026

8th April 2026

Wireless Festival cancelled

Government denies Kanye West visa

sweet Justice

Heartfelt

The book you bought for my birthday

and wrapped with tissue paper and purple ribbon

lies forgotten in the loft;

one book amongst many,

in a box labelled 'to keep'

for I gave you that much,

and inside the crabbed pages

a birthday card you made --

a marker of how far I got

before you left me for a man

with a beard and excess belly

who threatened me as I left for work,

a victim of the manly art

of being transphobic and mean

face-to-face with a deviant weirdo

he thought he could intimidate.

No matter.

I looked him in the eyes and said 'no'

I wouldn't move from the marital home

until I had somewhere to go.

Was it brave of me or not?

He was twice my size and had God

firmly in his corner

weeping as the world died.

I kept the book for thirty years

until I finally went through the box

and gave it to the charity shop

still

with the card inside.