The Little Elections

after The League of Gentlemen

Unlike all other candidates,
 I’m very much in favour of dog shit; 
have it with everything;
am especially fond of the sort produced by 
frightened Rottweilers.
I have the energy, enthusiasm and necessary
sexual appetite to properly 
service the people behind doors
	I’m knocking on locally.
I’m for more traffic jams
	and overweight policemen called 
Frank.  
I won’t be diverted into talking
about abortion or world war four. 
This is a little election for little people. 
I’m against nasal congestion
and political reform; have lived locally 
for the past half hour.

Our eight year old, Cian,
will support whatever football team
you want him to. I’m against 
adverse weather conditions in Salthill;
okay, in theory, with the continued 
existence of black people. 
I’ve studied transport systems
at Mauthausen, Belzec, Vorkuta; think I know
	how to ensure two Ballybane buses
never again come along at once.  

The Little Elections is © KEVIN HIGGINS

Kevin Higgins poetry features in the generation defining anthology Identity Parade – New British and Irish Poets (Ed Roddy Lumsden, Bloodaxe, 2010) and one of his poems is included in the forthcoming anthology The Hundred Years’ War: modern war poems (Ed Neil Astley, Bloodaxe April 2014). The Ghost In The Lobby (Salmon, Spring 2014) is Kevin’s fourth collection of poems.   Praise for Kevin Higgins’s poetry: “His contribution to the development of Irish satire is indisputable…Higgins’ poems embody all of the cunning and deviousness of language as it has been manipulated by his many targets… it is clear that Kevin Higgins’ voice and the force of his poetic project are gaining in confidence and authority with each new collection.” Philip Coleman “Gil Scott Heron’s The Revolution Will Not Be Televised as re-told by Victor Meldrew”. Phil Brown, Eyewear   “good satirical savagery”. The Cambridge Introduction to Modern Irish Poetry, 1800-2000

• Pantoum For Limerick National City of Culture 2014