Dog Fears

It’s okay, I say quietly,
it’s only a plastic bag.
But he isn’t convinced,
goes to his bed.
Then I bring out the Hoover;
he rushes into the back room.
I massage his silky head
as he escapes into sleep,
whimpers his way to a safer place
until he fireworks begin and
he is at my feel all aquiver.
I tell him I understand the firework thing;
they make me nervous too.
I gently lift his ear, whisper,
(so the cats can’t hear)
I do understand you know,
how frightening life can be,
about courage, and how
it isn’t the absence of fear
but being brave enough to
walk through it anyway;
you are doing just fine.

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Sunday mornings

Chapel was compulsory
in our household
unless you were nearly dead
which was how I often felt
after Saturday night
at the youth club
or to be more precise
The Red Lion Pub.

If you don’t come then
you’ll peel all the vegetables
for dinner –
difficult choice.

God didn’t approve of jeans either
unless you were catholic,
then he didn’t mind one way or another.
But we were Methodist to the core;
a weekly dose of pleated obedience –
below the knee.

Arrows of hell fire and damnation
fired from the pulpit
aimed solely at me
because I was the one
who didn’t want to be there
and God knew it;
I was marked down in his
little book of badness every week.

But even if God hated me
attendance was rewarded;
one more reprieve
for that day at least
from the ever increasing
slipperiness of the slope
I was now on, heading toward
parental shaking of heads
and the shameful label of
“bitter disappointment”
which was the last thing in the world
I would ever want to be
because that would mean
I had failed.

 

Mirror – (Sonnet)

Mirror

Bevelled edge of leafy flowers and vines
a keepsake that I hang upon my wall.
This mirror that I see before me shines;
it seems the years were minutes after all.
Sweetest face you are never far from me,
memories like a favourite food each day
and in my heart I know I’ll ever see
the way you always helped me find my way.
And now that time has passed and you are gone
I see a person looking back at me,
she’s older wiser and a little drawn
and though I know it’s me who I can see
you’re looking back and smiling at the grey
and in this glass it’s you I see each day.