Gratuitously Retrievered Poem by Tony Jolley

Sunday 07.30
Felt like 05.30, frankly:
More a case of over-indulgence than overtired;
But most of all it felt like
A long, hot, rasping Retriever-tongue
Bed-bathing my face
With its own personal hygiene system…
... And that would be because it was.

Ever had your nose-hair meticulously showered,
Flanneled & hot-breath blow-dried
And your ears surgically Q-tipped
By a living, shape-shifting
Boring and drilling machine
With copious saliva lubrication….?
No?
Then keep it that way.

As wake up calls go
It falls well short on sympathy
Even if it makes up for it in efficacity:
Believe me -
You DO wake up.

If by (hopefully for you) remote chance
You find yourself in the self-same situation,
May I offer you one important and impeccably-researched
Piece of advice….?
.... As you struggle desperately
Towards the surface of consciousness,
Resist at all costs the all-too-natural temptation
To open your eyes
To see what the hell might be happening to you –
You'll only find your eyelids snapped up and out
Whilst the tip of a tongue
Windscreen-wipers right round the back of your eyeballs
Like an old-school, Fifties femme de ménage
On her first visit
Lifting the edges of your carpet
And tut-tutting deliberately not quite under her breath
In that accusatory tone
She has spent a whole lifetime refining and honing
Before shoving the Dyson's Dual-Cyclone nozzle
Unceremoniously underneath to slurp and choke
On the muck of ages past,
Simultaneously casting a condemnatory scowl
In your direction
Fit to convict a saint
And sentence him to eternities of torment
In a Hooverless hell.

But think before you shove or shoo
Your assailant away too –
Or you may find
The weight of one 30kg Retriever
Transferred through the small surface area of two paws
Amplifying the pressure impressively
And applying it mercilessly to what the French call:
'Les Bijoux de Famille'…
Believe me,
If that doesn't get your attention,
Nothing will.
It certainly did with me!