Remember every now and then
to redress the balance and acknowledge
that there are hedgehogs,
cooked breakfasts,
stomach aches from laughing
and the dumb comfort of an afternoon snooze

My dog-soul forgets to feed
and starves black,
paces circles for a bed
and with dead weight,
settles

thought and action,
usually smitten with intricacies,
are quietly smothered to nothing

a flat purgatory
scored with white noise, overcast
rendered in a pauper’s palette
on a canvas with no edge

ticks remain untocked
until at some distance
a mechanism is rewound
and a leash jangled
for an ear to lazily lift again

Remember the roast potato days,
try to feel them when they arrive
in a kind of “What is this life…” way

The days when a surfeit of crisp-crunch
surrounds a fluffy middle, robed in a gravy of any persuasion
placating even the glummest sentiments

When rains are driven off
by silken rice pudding
spiked with a sweet acid dollop of jam of any fruit

Recall the carbohydrate wealth
when the poor days come
and your heart-stomach rumbles

Butter fat richness will return
and learning to trust this
is an adult meal indeed

Three AM awake, aching with lateness
wrestling alone
even if a significant other is next to you
or little breaths flutter in next rooms

Shadow boxing ridiculous odds
in a world and heart full
of treacle thick worries
weighting your punches ineffectual
just like in the fear-fever dreams
that woke you

You skirt the maw below
resting place of your almighty failures
as the sick orange glow
breaches curtains and makes
familiar shapes judgmental
tut tut tutting at your uselessness

Here, you are defenceless

Here, the black thoughts insinuate,
find cracks to prise and plant suggestions
of a better world without you in it:
the limit of you

Dig deep, my human kin
quietly get up,
make a cup of tea,
write a message or two
to yourself, or for others later

Bide and wait
for the mute loved heaviness of sleep to return
or the welcome thinness of morning light
to wash the darkness back

In the new day, reach out,
with steady voice or bubble-snot,
be heard and seen
by friends or strangers
and try to heal again

Sing me a song of now
to hear what it sounds like

Broken rhythms and discords
or a bitter battled harmony?

I have my feet to stomp
and will whistle and holler free

To reach ears, hidden and open
all shaped the same

You’ve recalled what it’s like to be cold
in this blustered autumn wind
your fingers may be privileged
to flick a switch on central heating
and ignore the insistent, shivering world
while it continues to divide and burn