The Haircut
I had it imported
from Ancient Egypt, installed
upon my skull
by JobBridge slaves
grateful to be allowed touch
a scalp as potentially
valuable as mine.
I can smell opportunity
at a thousand yards,
and in the blink of a synthetic
eyelash, I’m off sniffing its
however questionable arse.
I’m Hillary Rodham Clinton
without the young idealist
in bad glasses phase.
I use Twitter
as a place to practice graciousness,
and would sacrifice
my favourite granddad
to the flames,
and enthusiastically throttle
both of yours,
for the chance to have the Renga
I wrote last week translated into Welsh.
I’m small but very well made,
apart from my hunchback soul,
which I keep under lock
and key in a music box
given me by my auntie,
about whom
the less said the better
KEVIN HIGGINS |
Kevin Higgins is co-organiser of Over The Edge literary events in Galway City. He has published four collections of poems: Kevin’s most recent collection of poetry, The Ghost In The Lobby, was launched at this year’s Cúirt Festival by Mick Wallace TD. His poems also features in the anthology Identity Parade – New British and Irish Poets (Bloodaxe, 2010) and one of his poems is included in the anthology The Hundred Years’ War: modern war poems (Ed Neil Astley, Bloodaxe May 2014). His poetry was recently the subject of a paper titled ‘The Case of Kevin Higgins: Or The Present State of Irish Poetic Satire’ given by David Wheatley at a symposium on satire at the University of Aberdeen; David Wheatley’s paper can be read in full here . Mentioning The War, a collection of his essays and reviews, was published by Salmon in April, 2012. Kevin’s blog is http://mentioningthewar.blogspot.ie/ . and has been described by Dave Lordan as “one of the funniest around” who has also called Kevin “Ireland’s sharpest satirist.”
Chris Murray 