Decider

A cider decider

is what I will be – 

a decisive insider

in cider insight,

deciding which cider’s

the cider for me – 

see, a cider decider’s

decidedly right.

Joshua Seigal

Wetherby

Whether the weather be good,

Or whether the weather be bad,

Whatever the weather in Wetherby

There there’ll be

Always a blast to be had.

Joshua Seigal

(I've never been to Wetherby, nor have I knowingly met anyone who has. I just had this stupid little rhyme going round and round in my head, so thought it would be fun to write it down. If anyone from the Wetherby Tourist Boad is reading this, do get in touch, and I can let you use my verse in your promotional material. For a small fee, natch.)

Every Time

Every time it’s the same – 

an unexpected day off,

an opportunity 

to do all the things

I never usually get time to do.

And every time

I ask my wife

the same stupid question:

Do you think Natwest is open

on Bank Holiday?

Joshua Seigal

Bread of Heaven

A pigeon’s religion

consists of a smidgen

of kitchen provisions

it picks off the floor.

It stakes its decision

on pious ambition

to take what it’s given

and poke it some more.

With celestial vision

it pecks with precision – 

a timeless tradition

in avian lore.

When faced with derision

it states its position:

this heavenly bread’s

what my mission is for. 

Joshua Seigal

Another Idea

I posted the other day about several ideas I had for novels. Well here is another idea. As with the previous ones, I am almost certainly too lazy ever to bring it to fruition, but this piece might serve as something of a stamp, to indicate that the idea was had, by me. Here we go. A boy is at primary school. He is prodigiously ‘gifted’, as they say. Perhaps he has a special penchant for maths, or maybe he is just an academic superstar across the board. I haven’t decided. Anyway, be this as it may, he is extremely socially awkward. He doesn’t understand the rules of social engagement, and consequently he has no friends. Except one person – a girl with learning difficulties. Despite the vast intellectual disparity between these two misfits, they connect on a deeper, more spiritual level. They ‘get’ each other. The boy talks to the girl about his theories regarding life, the universe and God. She approaches these topics from her own unique perspective, grounded not in rationality but something perhaps akin to mysticism. As the kids grow up, they go to different schools – the boy to a posh school for gifted kids, the girl to a remedial school for people with special needs. They meet up surreptitiously in the evenings. Eventually the boy goes to Oxford, or somewhere like that, where he is regarded as something of a whizz, one of the top people in his field. A girl at his college shows an interest in him, and he half-heartedly embarks on a relationship with her. Perhaps he drifts in and out of contact with his first love, I’m not sure. Anyway, the girl from his youth (the one with learning difficulties) goes to meet the boy in college, and the boy’s new girlfriend treats her with disdain, disbelief and contempt. The boy is torn between two different girls, one of whom satisfies his intellectual hunger, the other his spiritual one. Anyway, he ends up choosing the first girl, the one with learning difficulties. They get married. I’m not sure what happens after that, maybe that’s the end of the book, I don’t know. Anyway, the story is all about how true love transcends the intellect, how it floats above and past merely what is rational. Maybe I will write the book someday, who knows. Or maybe it’s a film. Or a book that gets made into a film. Or perhaps it’s a short play. Or maybe it’s just a shitty blog post on a blog that no one reads. I don’t know. 

Joshua Seigal

Neanderthal

So I had an idea for a novel. The Last Neanderthal on Earth. I can picture the cover now: our protagonist stands with his back to the audience, in the mouth of a cave, looking up at the night sky with its stars and full moon. Maybe he is holding a club. Did Neanderthals hold clubs? I’ve no idea, I’ve not done the research. My idea was also that the book would be written from the Neanderthal’s point of view. The problem is, I’ve got no idea how to make this plausible; I don’t know the extent to which Neanderthals were able to use words, nor how they may have ordered the thoughts in their mind. Again, I’ve not done the research. And that’s the problem isn’t it – I have these ideas, but I’m too lazy to follow through on them. I get other ideas for novels too. I had this really weird one, set in a kind of dystopia, where criminals and wrongdoers are punished by being buried alive, with nothing but a tube through which to breathe. Imagine the horror of that – a slow, agonising death through starvation and sensory deprivation. Or maybe the air supply wouldn’t be enough, I don’t know. I picture a field, with rows and rows of these tubes sticking out of the ground at regular intervals, each one signifying where some unfortunate soul has been buried. So far, the book has a title but no plot. It’s called Field of Tubes. Maybe it could become a sort of Kafkaesque short story, like his piece ‘The Hunger Artist’, or ‘In the Penal Colony’. But Kafka was a genius and I am a schmuck. A lazy schmuck. I’ve had other ideas too. Another one is about a guy, an Oxbridge graduate, who scrapes by in a menial job, on a very low income. He lives alone in a less than salubrious part of town, and justifies his penury by telling the world (including his pushy, anxious parents) that he is writing a novel. A Great Novel. But he isn’t. And the novel is all about how this guy is not writing a novel. That’s another one of my ideas, but I’m too lazy even to write a novel about a guy who is too lazy to write a novel. Jeez, what a life we lead. What a life. 

Joshua Seigal

Cat Food

Anxiety makes you selfish. Locked in your head, cognisant of little but your own needs – needs for safety, needs for reassurance. That’s why I’m sat here with a bag of cat food. It isn’t much, but it’s something. It’s a start. My brain needs anxiety; the cat needs food. I’m putting someone else’s needs first, for once. Or at least bringing those needs into the picture. Anyway. Here I am, on a park bench, with a bag  of cat food.

Joshua Seigal

Unhappy Chappy

Lara McNamara

borrowed Capybara’s cap.

Capybara barked at Lara:

“You deserve a slap!”

Lara laughed as Capybara

fretted in a flap,

then she tipped her carbonara

over Capybara’s lap.

Joshua Seigal

Straight From the Poet's Mouth

First of all, I’d like to say how honoured I am that my poem was chosen for the GCSE syllabus. It really is most humbling. Here are some things I, The Poet, think you, the student, should know. 

1. The poem in question might be called ‘Lovely Flowers in Springtime’, but it is actually about hippopotamuses. There may be no reference at all to hippopatamuses in the poem, but it’s all about what is left unsaid. 

2. The form of the poem, namely its ABAB rhyme scheme, represents the bubbling sound that hippopotamuses make when they wallow in the mud – sort of, like, abababab.

3. The poem was written on a late night train on the way back from Great Yarmouth. I, The Poet, typed it out on an old Nokia and texted it to myself, as I didn’t have my notebook with me, or any money for a decent phone.

4. I, The Poet, am 54 years old and live with a cat called Marjorie. 

5. I, The Poet, also enjoy travelling, French cinema, pub lunches, and I have a Good Sense of Humour.

6. If you tip the poem on its side, you will see some lines are taller than others, which represents the buildings outside the window by which I, The Poet, sit and wait for the GCSE syllabus royalties to pour in. 

7. There is no enjambment in the poem, which represents the fact that hippopotamuses don’t like falling off the edge of things. 

8. I, The Poet, don’t even like flowers. In fact, I often stamp on them. Especially in springtime.

9. You have half an hour to remember all this and answer your question.

10. Good luck!

Joshua Seigal

Just So You Know

You will end up disappointing your wife,

and she will do the same to you,

but you will find your way back to each other.

They say that half of all relationships is rupture.

The other half is repair. Rupture and repair,

rupture and repare – and so it goes.

You are not her, and she is not you. 

You are together yet separate – 

two burs clinging to the fabric of the world,

blown apart yet coming back again, always.

You will end up disappointing your wife,

and she, my friend, will do the same to you. 

Joshua Seigal

Danny the Ditherer

I’m Danny the ditherer,

dithering daily,

for dithering’s just

what a ditherer does.

I dare not decide – 

I may simply say ‘maybe’, 

it may be that simply

my mind’s in a fuzz.

I hum and I haw

as I dither and dawdle.

I’m Danny the ditherer – 

sadly, it’s true, 

for hither and thither

(much more than is normal)

I teeter and temporise.

Dither? I do.

Joshua Seigal

No Creatures Were Harmed in the Making of This Poem

We’re watching a tangled knot of lemurs

having a play fight high up on a branch,

when suddenly one falls down and goes scampering

through the undergrowth. A little boy, holding his dad’s hand,

lets out the loudest whoop of laughter I’ve ever heard.

The lemurs seemed happy enough too.

And here we all are, in this moment, under

the same beaming sun. Nothing can take away

the goodness in this world. Nothing.

Joshua Seigal

Motor Skills

I’m stuck in my car.

This is not what I’d planned.

I’ve called a mechanic

to lend me a hand. 

He said that he’d come,

but, for now, to stay put,

so I’ll twiddle my thumbs

while a hand is afoot. 

Joshua Seigal