She keeps staring
at the front door and yowling.
I catch her curled up
on your side of the bed.
She doesn’t settle on my chest
the way she does on yours.
She stands on my lap, not quite
looking me in the eyes.
The curtains have been ripped to shreds.
She paces round in the nights,
from room to room, looking for you.
Her feline instincts sense
that something is amiss.
I try to pick her up.
She gives me a hiss.
Joshua Seigal
I dropped you off at the airport.
When I got home there’d been a power cut –
no internet, no microwave, no hot coffee.
It was as if the flat had given up
in solidarity with your absence.
I flipped the switch on the fuse box
and waited for the place to sigh back to life.
I heard the oven ping, saw a light flicker
on the TV. It was then that I realised
I had the most pounding, godawful headache.
Joshua Seigal
Of all of the authors
in all of the world,
I think of my favourite one;
the writer who writes
with the choicest of ink
and a pen from which wonders
are spun;
the bard I regard and
who leaves me aghast
at the beautiful turn of their phrase;
the wordsmith who works
with the best of all words,
whose creations astound and
amaze.
There’s Shakespeare and Dickens
and Roger McGough –
indeed I could wax on and on;
there’s Sylvia Plath
and Virginia Woolf,
but my favourite one is
‘Anon’.
I can’t stand jalapeños.
Please keep them out my pot.
They’re jarrowingly jorrible
and jideously jot!
Joshua Seigal
HONEST JACK
Jack Sheppard was locked in a cell.
His mind, cogitating, did dwell
on making a break,
so a rope he did take
and he clambered away down the side of the prison wall.
Jack Sheppard was banged up once more.
He sliced through his bars with a saw.
Leaping over the gate
and defying his fate,
he promptly absconded for a second time.
Jack Sheppard, imprisoned anew,
was certain of what he should do.
Distracting the guard,
he crept into the yard
and he sauntered out of the jail, dressed in women’s clothing.
When faced with unwanted restriction,
Jack always escapes this affliction.
You can cuff him, detain him,
confine and constrain him,
but he’ll always break loose of whatever limitations you put upon his freedom.
Joshua Seigal
Spicy Mind
I have a spicy mind. It doesn’t
do what people tell it to.
It’s often very friendly but then
sometimes it’ll yell at you.
It’s like a pair of horses pulling
each their separate way at once,
or else it is a jester with
a chestful of annoying stunts.
I have a spicy mind. It often
makes me want to scream and shout.
It’s like a tiger, locked up in
a cage, that simply can’t get out.
It throws me lots of curveballs
and it’s riddled with anxiety.
It conjures ways to trick me
with its impish impropriety.
I have a spicy mind. I guess
it’s tiring, but I’ve grown to learn
that often it’s delectable
despite the way my brain can burn.
My mind belongs to me, you see
I think that I am stuck with it,
so stick it in your recipe
and come and try your luck with it!
My moniker is Monica.
From Monaco I came.
I’m good on the harmonica;
Veronica’s the same.
They ask about my moniker.
“It’s Monica”, I claim,
“and me and my Veronica,
we came in search of fame.”
My moniker is Monica.
Simplicity’s my aim:
see, Monica’s my moniker –
my name’s the name for ‘name’.
Joshua Seigal
