| “The sky is high / We shit on earth / We look up the sky / The earth gives birth / To our future” Yoko Ono, Poetry (July/August 2018) (i) The Christmas lights which bat their eyelids The gold-plated giant front gate tasteful The foundation wobbly as the sestina sequence The walls and internal supporting beams The water faucets in the vast bathroom (ii) In cases made of teak, Ezra Pound’s raised right hand; Weldon Kees’s obviously suicidal car keys; Eileen Myles’s last leather jacket the bunch of blue violets Edgar Allan Poe’s and Charles a stray candle from Robert Frost’s and several false beards (iii) For these are the endowed halls © KEVIN HIGGINS |
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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.” |
Tag: Kevin Higgins
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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.”
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One Has To Admire His Ability As A Poet
“I was struck by … his courage in speaking out to defend the memory of Charles Haughey”
Vincent Woods, RTE websiteTo defend the memory of Boris Yeltsin’s
vodka bottle. To take money from both the late Benito
Mussolini and, when pragmatism demanded it, those
who spat on him when he was safely
hanging upside down outside an Esso station.
To put in the proper context of realpolitik
as practised in parts of County Wexford
the late Father Fortune’s harem of boys.
To share a Ouija board with President Duvalier
while supping rum from the skull of an infant
who was always going to come to this
because, in the words of W.H.Auden,
‘poetry makes fuck-all difference’.
To share a roast leg with General Amin
and not mind which of his enemies was being eaten.
To recite even his longer poems
to a musical accompaniment of Vladimir Putin
twanging his jock-strap, like a rude balalaika.
To roll around wrapped in the French flag
with Marine Le Pen, whispering
in her cockle shell the words ‘Barbie, Bormann,
Goering’, because that’s the sort of thing
an advocate for the arts must sometimes do.KEVIN HIGGINS
Kevin Higgins facilitates poetry workshops at Galway Arts Centre and teaches creative writing at Galway Technical Institute. He is also Writer-in-Residence at Merlin Park Hospital and the poetry critic of the Galway Advertiser. He was a founding co-editor of The Burning Bush literary magazine and is co-organiser of over the edge literary events in Galway City. His first collection of poems The Boy With No Face was published by Salmon in February 2005 and was short-listed for the 2006 Strong Award. His second collection, Time Gentlemen, Please, was published in March 2008 by Salmon. His work also features in the generation defining anthology Identity Parade – New British and Irish Poets (ed roddy lumsden, Bloodaxe, 2010). Frightening New Furniture, his third collection of poems, was published in 2010 by Salmon Poetry. Kevin has read his work at most of the major literary festivals in Ireland and at arts Council and Culture Ireland supported poetry events in Kansas City, USA (2006), Los Angeles, USA (2007), London, UK (2007), New York, USA (2008), Athens, Greece (2008); St. Louis, USA (2008), Chicago, USA (2009), Denver, USA (2010), Washington D.C (2011), Huntington, West Virginia, USA (2011), Geelong, Australia (2011), Canberra, Australia (2011), St. Louis, USA (2013), Boston, USA (2013) & Amherst, Massachusetts (2013). Mentioning The War, a collection of his essays and reviews was published in april 2012 by Salmon. (SALMON)
It Was For This by Kevin Higgins -
Treatise on Uselessness
after Rosita Boland
Throughout my truly enormous life,
I’ve never found a use for
gypsies.When one decides to spend the night
searching online
for a worse deal
on one’s house insurance,
there’s never
a gypsy about to help.Or when one advertises a vacancy
for Associate Professor of English at Trinity
there’s hardly ever a gypsy
around to fill it.Or when the wedding
of an Eritrean goatherd and his beloved
is in crying need of a cruise missile,
there’s never a gypsy available
to press the required buttons
and later tell the inquiry
it was all a terrible
misunderstanding.Despite millions ingested
by social programmes, we’ve mostly
failed to submerge gypsies
in the internationally agreed system
of an indecent day’s pay
for a decent week’s work.Yet the state insists
on making gypsies compulsory
for those who’d rather never
have to speak to one.What practical purpose does it serve
for us to continue to try to absorb
gypsies into what my late Popsicle
-a one time Viceroy of Upper Munster- used
to call society,when all but a few fanatics know it’s futile
as trying to teach a Latvian cage dancer
how to speak Irish?© KEVIN HIGGINS
Kevin Higgins facilitates poetry workshops at Galway Arts Centre and teaches creative writing at Galway Technical Institute. He is also Writer-in-Residence at Merlin Park Hospital and the poetry critic of the Galway Advertiser. He was a founding co-editor of The Burning Bush literary magazine and is co-organiser of over the edge literary events in Galway City. His first collection of poems The Boy With No Face was published by Salmon in February 2005 and was short-listed for the 2006 Strong Award. His second collection, Time Gentlemen, Please, was published in March 2008 by Salmon. His work also features in the generation defining anthology Identity Parade – New British and Irish Poets (ed roddy lumsden, Bloodaxe, 2010). Frightening New Furniture, his third collection of poems, was published in 2010 by Salmon Poetry. Kevin has read his work at most of the major literary festivals in Ireland and at arts Council and Culture Ireland supported poetry events in Kansas City, USA (2006), Los Angeles, USA (2007), London, UK (2007), New York, USA (2008), Athens, Greece (2008); St. Louis, USA (2008), Chicago, USA (2009), Denver, USA (2010), Washington D.C (2011), Huntington, West Virginia, USA (2011), Geelong, Australia (2011), Canberra, Australia (2011), St. Louis, USA (2013), Boston, USA (2013) & Amherst, Massachusetts (2013). Mentioning The War, a collection of his essays and reviews was published in april 2012 by Salmon. (SALMON)
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Ask them where they stand on the urgent
need for a Greater Serbia.Tell them nothing has been right
since the Treaty of Versailles,
for which you hold each
and every one of their kind
personally responsible.Tell them the council’s been promising
to chop down that tree for the past
twenty five years, six months and two days;
that you’re certain
your next door neighbour is a Satanist,
with dead animals buried under his patio.Start throwing down chicken feed
to apparently non-existent hens,
and wander about your front garden, chanting
their preferred candidate’s name,
as if in some sort of trance.If a lady over the age of eighty,
or a child less than twelve,
tell them: no thank you,
you’ve given up sex for lent.
If a middle aged male,
come to the door panting
and red faced, with a semi-clad
woman strategically placed
behind you, and say you have
more urgent business
to which you really must attend.Tell them you’re pretty sure
your most intimate bits
are an unusual shape,
that you’d like them
to take a look and tell you
what their policy is
in cases like this.© KEVIN HIGGINS
Kevin Higgins facilitates poetry workshops at Galway Arts Centre and teaches creative writing at Galway Technical Institute. He is also Writer-in-Residence at Merlin Park Hospital and the poetry critic of the Galway Advertiser. He was a founding co-editor of The Burning Bush literary magazine and is co-organiser of over the edge literary events in Galway City. His first collection of poems The Boy With No Face was published by Salmon in February 2005 and was short-listed for the 2006 Strong Award. His second collection, Time Gentlemen, Please, was published in March 2008 by Salmon. His work also features in the generation defining anthology Identity Parade – New British and Irish Poets (ed roddy lumsden, Bloodaxe, 2010). Frightening New Furniture, his third collection of poems, was published in 2010 by Salmon Poetry. Kevin has read his work at most of the major literary festivals in Ireland and at arts Council and Culture Ireland supported poetry events in Kansas City, USA (2006), Los Angeles, USA (2007), London, UK (2007), New York, USA (2008), Athens, Greece (2008); St. Louis, USA (2008), Chicago, USA (2009), Denver, USA (2010), Washington D.C (2011), Huntington, West Virginia, USA (2011), Geelong, Australia (2011), Canberra, Australia (2011), St. Louis, USA (2013), Boston, USA (2013) & Amherst, Massachusetts (2013). Mentioning The War, a collection of his essays and reviews was published in april 2012 by Salmon. (SALMON)
It Was For This by Kevin Higgins -
Proposal To Erect Monuments
In memory of poet, Frank Yammergob:
a twenty foot likeness entrenched in bronze;
the bits of old burger he kept in his
beard left in for authenticity.Fastened to the dome of city hall
giving his enemies the finger. Exact
replicas atop every public building he paid
not a cent towards.One laying permanent claim
to the disabled parking space
he liked nothing more than
to nick. Othersoutside offices, factories, schools
in which he never
worked a day in what might
loosely be called his life.The damage, a fraction of what
his parade of ex-girlfriends cost
the state in psychotherapist’s fees. Not
to speak of government grants to burythose who shot themselves having read
his thoughts on the necessity of rhyme
in the comments section of
the Connaught Trybewn website. In life,his one reader was a retired vice-principal
who went about the place wearing most of a sheep;
and told women he sat beside on buses
the way Yammergob’s versesso perfectly scan calls to mind for him
days when a teacher was free to bring
the strap down on the heaving
buttocks of young girls.Before political correctness gone bonkers.
When, from every lamp-post, down our street
hung a paedophile.The words at the base of each effigy,
In His Memory, remind
though, technically, he still breathes,
die he eventually must.Proposal To Erect Monuments is © 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).
Higgins’ 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.”
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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.” -
When You Are Old
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after William Butler YeatsWhen you are old and bald and full of crap
and sitting there in threadbare rags,
reach across to your old bookcase
for a dusty old copy of a girlie mag.Fondle it, then, a little sadly
in your withered veiny hands.
If you can manage to pull the pages apart,
take one last glad glance at a naked tart.Remember how once you could get it up,
before your pecker just shrivelled up.© 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 http://georgiasam.blogspot.ie/2014/05/the-case-of-kevin-higgins-or-present.html . 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.” -
It Was For This
That Queen Maeve prepared for battle
by angrily shaving her armpits with a razor
improvised from north Fermanagh shale.
For this W.B. Yeats took all that
experimental Viagra, and waited for
the consequences to grow. For this
Archbishop McQuaid
rolled naked through fields of Lavender.
For this Maude Gonne let slip
from her womb a future
Minister for External Affairs,
while loudly denying
the Holocaust in Irish.
For this Oliver J. Flanagan warned us:
“where the bees are there is the honey,
and where the Jews are there is the money”
For this latter day Druids moved
to Ballyvaughan or west Cork,
and began accepting payment by PayPal.
For this Fiachra of the fashionable whiskers
took his herbal tincture and sat
letting silence surround him
for the twenty four hours
his homeopath recommended. For this
genuine girls all over Ireland
are waiting for your call
after you stop shouting
at the terrible news. For this
you paid the phone bill though it left
your bank account burnt
as a cottage visited once too often
by the black and tans. For this
on wild Atlantic nights –
the lines down and the cattle crying
in the fields, you keep trying
to get through – though you’re pretty sure
some of those girls aren’t genuinely
girls. For this Eoin O’Duffy
put all his bulls in the one field
and dreamed of one day
holding in this hand
Heinrich Himmler’s mickey. For this
Sean O’Casey broke the window
to let the winter in
and wrote letters backing
the Hitler-Stalin pact. For this
Dr Maureen Gaffney of Trinity College
went on the radio every Saturday
to express concern about poverty,
and people phoned in to agree.
For this the people of Roscommon drank
from their toilets, and threw up
thankful prayers to the monks
at Glenstal Abbey. For this
you voted to keep the black babies out
a sensible policy for a cleaner
Glenamaddy, Hacketstown, Portlaoise…
For this the bus driver didn’t stop just now
when he saw you waving.
All that history
so you can stumble up the steps,
sweat gushing from your armpits, late
for that crucial interview; or arrive
at the hospital ten minutes after
they’ve switched off the respirator
and folded the sheet white
over your father’s face.
It was all for this.
© KEVIN HIGGINSKevin 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 http://georgiasam.blogspot.ie/2014/05/the-case-of-kevin-higgins-or-present.html . 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.” .
- Kevin Higgins will be taking part in the Lingo Festival this coming Saturday.
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“Over 15,500 human remains incinerated to heat UK hospitals over 2-year-period. #800babies #outrage @amnesty” Tweet by Cora Sherlock of the Pro-Life Campaign Renewable Energy: Cora Sherlock’s Excellent Suggestion
We must stop giving it away for nothing
–our greatest natural resource –
the Department of Finance estimates
Tallaght Hospital could heat itself
entirely on foetuses properly burnt
in one of those state of the art
energy efficient furnaces that are
all the rage in Sweden.
Within the lifetime of this government
every hospital in the country could be fuelled
by the unwanted contents of visiting wombs.
The minority of cranks aside,
the average foetus would be delighted
to make this small contribution towards
society’s continued warmth.
And when the ban on contraceptive devices
is re-introduced; every last diaphragm,
IUD, cock-ring, and bit of rubber
ribbed for your pleasure incinerated
in a field outside Ballinspittle,
after a blessing by Mother Teresa,
(specially flown in from
the black beyond)
and the conception rate soars
back towards
the traditional twelve
pregnancies per lifetime, two thirds,
we estimate, resulting in terminations,
we can start talking
about the export market.
Economists say the uteruses
of the greater Dublin area alone
could light the living rooms
of a medium sized British city,
such as Bradford.
Education is key.
To get the lady parts of the country
conceiving as they’ll have to,
every pubescent girl,
on her fifteenth birthday,
will be shown her way around
the first twenty pages of the Kama Sutra
by a fully qualified curate
under the age of seventy.
This policy’s success
will abolish talk of deficits
and oil prices. Instead,
we’ll debate furiously
whether to blow our vast surplus
on a few thousand more
unemployed tin whistle players
with the hint of an English accent,
or free nose jobs and tummy tucks
for the wives of the wealthy—the biggest
plastic surgery project in world history
since NASA’s unsuccessful attempt
to build another Joan Rivers.
© KEVIN HIGGINS, 2014
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 anthologies Identity Parade – New British and Irish Poets (Bloodaxe, 2010) and in 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 blogs at Mentioning The War..
Chris Murray 