A message from a Dog.

I became obsessed with Castor Dog.

This drawing. More than a drawing.

An avatar, really. For something

I couldn’t articulate. I was wrong

To think that I was right and inviolable

About all that stuff. Like, I had energy

And bundles of it. I was more than ready

To take on shadowy, somehow insubstantial

Society mores. I signed on, and took the money

And spent it on creating music and some words

But mostly records and drink and various herbs

And all that. It was just, and right, and anyway funny

To sniff poppers at football games and cry and giggle

Even when the bottle started stinking of cheesy feet

Even when it just created horrible throbbing headaches. Beat

Those days for fun. Maybe a smoke. A rolled-up ciggy

In one hand, white cider bottle in the other one.

And don’t admit you need a piss on the kranky bus

To an away game: people will prod and push

Your bladder til you’re sure you’ll lose control.

I don’t think anyone ever did, at that.

It was easier to urinate from a window

Or an open Transit van door as we flew down

The A55, or crawled down the A470, that

Worst-windy, gear-grindy only way to manage

To get to Aber, where we’d cheer and sing

And drink in the Nag’s Head, blue shirts sweaty, everything

Possible in football. In life, too: there was even a Bangor Garage.

But Castor Dog now was taking on shape.

I put him on the photocopied press releases

That I’d get faxed to John Peel, hoping that he’d see

The latest Vaffan Coulo lies about whatever crap

I’d made up. It was all upside-down of course:

I had rage, I spose I still do, but now I know where to aim

It. In those days, I’d rant and I’d rave but didn’t know the game

Was rigged in ways I’d never considered before.

Well. I was 19 I suppose. That’s alright. I forgive myself.

I’m not embarrassed. It was just me, then, and I still am me,

And I am him, and all the things I was previously,

A crybaby kid in school, doing sums and all that guff

And being called ‘clever’ and all that useless stuff

That stopped me thinking properly. No. That’s not right:

I ought to have read less, thought less, and just been alive;

But of course that’s the hardest one to pull off.

Castor Dog stayed, and he appeared on our records

As a picture. In the thank-yous. He was probably there

When we recorded in a squat with Sam. A place where

We were clambering over debris. It was what we could afford

And I wish I knew where those tapes were. I’d love

To hear them. No reason why other than I

Remembered them recently. I don’t know why

I did. Well. We did it. Maybe that was enough

And maybe I just want to prove it. That

We were there. Alive. Arsing about and mistargeting

These laser swords of anger and concurrent darting

Around in the murky world of knowledge that

One day would be our time. Well, I was right I think

About that. But now I wonder whether our time

Was that time; that maybe we controlled our ride

More than we thought. That amidst all the drink

And the sniffy-noses and the lung-burning days

The essence of it all was always with us. Perhaps, too,

Castor Dog knew all of this. Maybe he knew even then who

Would reappear in my memories these last few days:

Him. It. A drawing. An avatar. A receptacle for everything

He observed, quietly just remembering it all, til such time

That I would need to know that I was half-right

About some things and – though unsteadying –

I’d be happy just with this germ, this fluttering gut

When I think of those days, those people, the band

And the football, and the cider, adventures that stand

To remind me: yes, you were there. And you’re not done yet.

And that is the second coming of Castor Dog.