Cats and Cats and Cats!

I don’t want a book

about lions or dogs;

I don’t want a book

about rabbits or frogs;

I don’t want a book

about badgers or bats – 

I just want a book

about CATS!

I don’t want a book 

about windows or doors;

I don’t want a book

about tables or floors;

I don’t want a book

about T-shirts or hats – 

I just want a book

about CATS!

I don’t want a book

about hamster or horses,

or heather, or ivy,

or poppies or gorses,

or hedgehogs or hillocks

or rivers or rats – 

I just want a book

about CATS!

I don’t want a book

about anything silly,

or soppy or slimy 

or filthy or frilly;

I’m feelin' fine feline 

felicitous tracts – 

yes give me a book

about CATS!!!

Joshua Seigal

Is It Safe Yet?

I’ve not checked the news for five minutes,

so I can’t be sure. Best check again. Better yet,

ask ChatGPT if there’s been any updates – 

what’s the latest situation in Iran, Russia, the USA?

Has the nuclear risk increased?

Can I please have a percentage likelihood, please?

It haunts me in the night. I wake up at five,

shuffle into the room next door,

and – bleary eyed – I check my phone…

My therapist says this is a form of self harm:

I think it makes me safer but the opposite is true – 

the greatest danger is that which I pose

to myself. Not the tanks or the bombs. Not here

in England. (How lucky I am to live here.)

I’ve not checked the news for five minutes. 

I’ve been writing this poem and I haven’t checked. 

Is this a win? Is this a small victory?

I put down the pen. What will I do next?

Joshua Seigal 

Fire Hazard

An electrician came

to look behind the fridge-freezer

and said it was a fire hazard.

The wiring wasn’t done correctly.

For ten years I’ve been living in this flat

and the whole time there it was –

the fire hazard

waiting right in front of me.

And for forty years I’ve been living

in this world

with fire hazards everywhere.

Most of the rooms around here

don’t have windows

to escape from

and jump out of any window

and you simply land face-flat

in dry kindling anyway.

The floors are a fire hazard.

The walls are a fire hazard.

That line that separates

the land from the sky

is really a wire leading to a box of TNT.

The whole place is ready to blow.

I look at the moon

out the window at night,

casting faint light across the trees

in the park.

Come the morning

we’ll hear cries of abandon

from the swings and slides;

the quickening breath

of the crackling asphalt. 

Joshua Seigal

Come and Look at Bluebell!

Lounging on the table top

Splayed out in a belly flop 

Pretty as a movie prop – 

Come and look at Bluebell!

Curled up in a little heap 

Smiling in the grip of sleep 

Snoozing soundly, nice and deep – 

Come and look at Bluebell!

Loafing on the windowsill

Like a lumpy-bumpy hill 

Grab that camera! Have your fill – 

Come and look at Bluebell!

Munching plastic, yum yum yum 

Naughty kitty! Bad for tum!

(Now she stops and licks her bum…)

Come and look at Bluebell!

Joshua Seigal

Album Recommendation - 'Heartworms' by Whipping Boy

In Year 8, aged about thirteen, a friend lent me a copy of Nirvana's 'Nevermind'. I'd never heard any Nirvana before. About a minute into the album, I thought wow - this is one of the best things I have ever heard, and at the end of the opening song I was convinced that I had just heard the best song ever. Then the second song kicked in and it was somehow even better, or at least as good, and this feeling was maintained throughout the entirety of the album. I then went straight back to the beginning and listened to it all over again, and did this pretty solidly for about three or four years. Ever since then, I have never felt the same way about an album. Sure, there have been many albums I've loved, but not in the same way as 'Nevermind', where each song completely blew me away. Well, I've just had a comparable experience, and I'd like to share it. The band is Whipping Boy, and the album is 1995's 'Heartworms'. It's often cited as among the best Irish rock albums ever made, but the band never garnered even 100th of the attention they deserved. It's an incredible album, and I highly recommend that you give it a listen. Who knows, maybe one or two of you will have a similar transcental experience to mine. Here they are on Jools Holland, doing a similar thing to what Fontaines DC have gone on to do. Only Whipping Boy did it earlier, and better. Enjoy:

The Hope

In my hands, I’m holding

this unbearably heavy ball of hope. 

Watch me fold under its gravity. 

Come, help heft this globe

of hope for me, that I might rest

awhile, and replenish my strength.

Joshua Seigal

The Comedian

You’re about to go onstage

when she calls you up

to say her mum is sick. 

You’re about to go onstage

when you catch a glimpse of BBC News – 

Russia is going to test Article 5. 

You’re about to go onstage

when an urgent email from HMRC

hits your inbox. 

You’re about to go onstage

when you realise that everything

is so fragile, 

so insecure, so unsafe

that the only thing clasping the world together

is this moment – 

the faces that await you;

the lullabies

in their laughter.

Joshua Seigal

Poems Published in Fabulous New Football Anthology

I am delighted to announce that I have no less than ELEVEN poems published in a fabulous new poetry anthology of football poems: 

Here is a little sample, inspired (unfortunately) by the team I support. No prizes for guessing who they are!

Everyone, do go online a buy the book!!!

On Writing a Poem About Parenthood

How can I write

a poem about parenthood?

they ask, incredulous.

I have never been a parent.

I have never brought up children.

No, I have never been a parent, I reply. 

But I have been a child. 

Joshua Seigal

The Form

She told me to sign the form

but the name just wouldn’t come out. 

From the tip of my pen, my own name

simply refused to be written. I kept wondering

what the hell was wrong with me, asked

for more paper, tried again and again

but the letters wouldn’t form the correct structure.

I wrote JOHN instead of JOSHUA.

John is my dad’s name. My dad’s. Not mine.

She gave me new paper. Said I still had time. 

Joshua Seigal 

Fun poems written by a teacher!

I recently received the following email from a teacher, containing both a very kind note of admiration for myself, and some lovely poems. I am pleased to be able to share the message, and I hope me readers enjoy the poems as much as I did. Do please follow the teacher-poet on Instagram - her handle is mentioned in the message below!

I’m a KS1/EYFS primary teacher and LOVE children’s poetry. I grew up reading Janet and Allan Ahlberg, Michael Rosen and Spike Milligan. I’ve introduced an annual poetry recital at school for the year 2s and they all performed a wonderful rendition of ‘I don’t like poetry.’ They all think it’s hilariously clever! 

I’ve just set up an instagram account called @poemsfortheyoungatheart. I’ve started uploading some of my poems. It’s on my bucket list to get a poem published one day so seemed a sensible place to start! 

They’re just silly ditties but would love to know what you think. There’s a few I’m going to try out on my class. 

Time to Line up!

It all started with a bell.

A lonely scuffle.

Then total hell! 

“Line up nicely!” The teacher cried. 

“Order! In rows. Side by side!

No pushing, no shoving, racing through. 

A line’s not hard. You know what to do.

You call this a line? It’s wiggly spaghetti! 

Oi! you there. Stop teasing Hetty!

Oh Honestly! I must implore! 

Stop that rolling on the floor! 

The bell has rung, The time is nigh! 

Stop that Sarah! You’re making Tom cry. 

Your shirt’s untucked. Your laces undone. 

You’re much too old. To be sucking your thumb! 

You all line up like babbling baboons! 

Jumping jelly beans! Loony Toons! 

Twenty ferrets In a vest,

A bear inside a hornets nest. 

I won’t give up! I don’t know how! 

YOU ALL NEED TO LINE UP RIGHT NOW!”

The playground froze. 

Then Joshua farted. 

And all went back to how they started. 

“I’m throwing the towel in. 

These kids should be free. 

I’m going in for a nice cuppa tea.” 

Nits (I actually wrote this when I was 10 but it’s a firm gross fave with my kids!)

“What’s that moving in your hair?”

My mother said to me.

“Come here. Let me have a closer look.

To see what it could be.”

It only took a little glance.

And some tugging at some bits.

I had caught the dreaded plague..

I had a head full of nits! 

All the instruments were in place

For the bug busting operation.

“Please sit still for another hour!

I need your cooperation!”

One by one the nits were pulled, 

And washed down the drain.

Goodbye my little friends.

But don’t come back again! 

When I’m Three 

I’m two years old.

But when I’m three 

Such a big boy 

I will be. 

I will be tall

Up to towering heights. 

I’ll turn all door knobs, 

Switch on all lights. 

I’ll use big scissors,

Cross the road.

Run cross the lawn, 

When it’s still being mowed. 

I’ll have big laces

On my shoes 

Pour my own milk

And watch the news. 

I’ll reach the biscuits,

Climb the tree. 

When I’m three,

There will be no stopping me! 

Year 3 write their own versions of my poem 'I Don't Like Poetry'

I was very excited when a teacher from Colville Primary School in Cambridge sent me the following message:

I just wanted to say how much my Year 3 class have enjoyed reading your poem 'I Don't Like Poetry' in Guided Reading. Some of them wrote their own versions independently after we read and discussed your work and I was so impressed by the way the stimulus of your poem got them writing some really interesting similes and metaphors. I've attached some examples for you. There was a thunderous round of applause when they read them out in assembly!

I am really happy to be able to share a selection of their fantastic poems on my blog. I hope you enjoy them as much as I did:

Soldiers

I could have you court-martialed for this!

the guy bellows, spit flying in my face.

I had just pointed my gun at a mate. As a joke.

The guy grabbed my collar and marched me off. 

The gun wasn’t loaded, obviously.

And the guy twisting my arm up my back was a Sixth Former.

The whole thing was a fake.

We weren’t real soldiers and this wasn’t a war.

I didn’t even want to do Cadets. My dad made me.

Said it would be good for my character.

I found my old boots the other day –

the ones that took weeks to wear in,

that gave my feet blisters

as we yomped through the forest.

They were stuffed in a bag at the back of the wardrobe,

along with dusty school reports

and bits of crumpled artwork.

I wondered what the Sixth Former was doing now.

Wife, kids and a decent job. Probably. 

I put the boots on and clomped to the tiny garden. 

My feet felt heavy, the grass buckling beneath.

The war came, you might say, and me? The first to run.

I’ve got the boots but no longer the gun.

Joshua Seigal