‘After The Revolution’ by Kevin Higgins

After The Revolution

for and entirely inspired by Quincy Lehr
 
We will pay homeless people to follow
poet and critic Matthias Wetruder. And not just
into drug-stores, dry-cleaners, and taxi-cabs
(though there too) but also into Japanese restaurants
where said homeless person will sit
next table vociferously demanding,
as will be his or her right,
tomato ketchup with their sushi;
 
into seminars at first NYU,
then the University of Houston, on Uselessness
in The Work of Matthias Wetruder
where they’ll angrily ask questions about Matthias
that Matthias can’t answer; around
 
branches of Barnes & Noble wearing
a coat with a fungal infection
(and no belt) reciting from the latest
translation into Albanian of Sophocles;
 
into performances of Vespers for a New Dark Age
at the New York Metropolitan Opera
where they’ll sit behind Matthias making it clear,
by their very body odour,
they know what he’s up to;
 
around award ceremonies where
Matthias Wetruder is due to present an award
to Matthias Wetruder; and most of all into
 
men’s rooms where they’ll loiter
in the neighbouring cubicle
loudly eating the yoghurt
we’ll pay people like them to eat
in men’s rooms after the revolution.
 
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.”