Kevin Higgins 
Poets may be divided into three types: those of us who must be and are, or have been, suppressed, at least until after we are dead; those whose subject matter is so commonplace/banal that it doesn’t matter either way; and then those who become pure decorations of the Regime. One key qualification for a poet … Read more
When I’m Allowed Leave The Cancer Ward with thanks to Claire Higgins for four of these lines When I get out of here I plan to open a factory that manufactures miniature guillotines which will be given away gratis to bullied schoolchildren to keep hidden in their bedrooms until I give the signal. When I … Read more
Formation of a Young Irish Intellectual after Nazim Hikmet You will go far young person if as soon as you enter this building you follow standard operating procedures and stop thinking altogether. We will do the thinking for you. For the more intellectually curious of you this will be as difficult initially as nailing yourself … Read more
The Candidate Explains after Charlotte Nichols MP I didn’t know the meaning of “incursion” or “dealt with” the negative connotation until this morning. Didn’t realise the possible definitions of “parasite”, “rubbish dump”, “bad human material”. Didn’t know until this morning the connotations of “dismantle”, “pikey”, “assimilate”. The negative meanings of “scum”, “child thief”, “branding iron”. … Read more
Memorial to Myself I have been away toasting tables lined with the pricier variety of imbecile; humouring old buzzards in Aran sweaters and cranky caps until their sweaters collapsed threadbare off their bastard backs. I have cut ribbons for guys floating balloons across the town square and calling it dance. I have eaten with people … Read more
Ballad of Lucy Kryton “There will not be a woman Prime Minister in my lifetime”, Margaret Thatcher The morning sun falls whitely on the lashes of Lucy Kryton. Her blondeness fully insured against theft, fire and termites. Her forehead the hard reality that care of both the elderly and the daft are best handled by … Read more
Safe To Say How ghastly the day before yesterday was now everyone associated with it is dead. In the future I’ll be against what’s going on now. I’ll be on the television, horrified. But not yet. As a civilised person, I’m absolutely in favour of the nice policeman now, one hundred percent against the tear … Read more
The Death By Drowning Of Twenty Seven Migrants In The English Channel on Wednesday It could have been twenty seven Cliff Richard fans who quite like that Boris Johnson really; twenty seven Noel Edmonds lookalikes whose wives stimulate themselves with The Daily Express; twenty seven former double glazing salesmen from Folkestone, Kent who blame everything … Read more
This Is Not a Well Made Poem The well made poem puts on its dicky bow, walks to the top of the hill, and has what it calls an epiphany. The well made poem sees every side of the argument, except those proscribed by the BBC. The well made poem has between twelve and twenty … Read more
We Lie after Holly McNish My one remaining friend, now I’ve plugged out my Mum, is in my pretend life because he’s willing to not notice what I metaphorically call things. Like the fact that I carry about with me, smiling up out of my man-bag, a two day dead pike that looks like it … Read more
The Most Risk-Taking Poet In Ireland My split infinitives clearly the work of a man who dries his clothes recklessly, sometimes not emptying the lint tray two cycles in a row. At the height of my experiments with formal verse I once drove a Ford Focus at a tantalising twenty nine kilometres per hour when … Read more
for Susan Millar DuMars More than a quarter of a century ago a man-child called Kevin retired from politics as he turned twenty seven. He had joined the then somewhat notorious Trotskyist group, the Militant Tendency[i], at the age of fifteen. After twelve years of activism, which began as a member of Galway West Labour … Read more
‘Liberals’ & ‘Death’ Two words that strut confident of their own historical inevitability. Everyone in time meets them, though hopefully not both ringing your door bell the same day, unless your name is Nagasaki or Vietnam; or you’re the first village no-one’s ever heard of successfully abolished from thirty thousand feet by a transgender person … Read more
Note From The Organisers Feel free to turn up (or not) wearing a full suit of armour, or a hat with a big feather in it and transparent trousers; or to come dressed as a future Bishop of Cork and Ross, or as the prophet Isaiah’s discredited older brother. But this march is no wild … Read more
My Approach to Literary Networking after Francois Villon Most days I’d rather be bundled into the courthouse between two hairy policemen, with a highly debatable anorak dragged over my face, and blamed for killing Kirov – the crowd lobbing big thick spits and battering the van as I’m carted off – or be stopped at … Read more
The Happy Song of Us Okay to buy your grandchild an ice-cream. Illegal for them to lick it. Fine to bake granny a gleaming fruit cake, as long as you only email her a high resolution photo of it. Okay to give your son or daughter a bright new football. Illegal for them to kick … Read more
Our Posh Liberal Friends for Susan Whenever I show them the Future, they refuse it; say: this future has bad hair, waves its arms around too much, is too Jewish, or not Jewish enough, too not-a-woman, or the wrong sort of woman. This Future has a face that one day might raise the corporate tax … Read more
Presidential When you finish reading this poem, you’ll remember only the Black Forest Gateaux I bought you once. I had no option but to vote for that tax on women’s shoes but greatly admired the fight you put up against it; have kept all the press cuttings, especially those that took care not to mention … Read more
Tribute Acts Each witch hunt is a tribute act to the last. There is always a committee of three. The gravity in the room is such they struggle to manoeuvre the enormity of their serious faces in the door. Except in the TV version, there is hardly ever a microphone. Though they will usually give … Read more
The Joke after Walter Benjamin A barrel of industrial waste poured into a suit donated by a casino owner who knows people with a tangerine tea towel tossed strategically on top because it was the only available metaphor for hair was running for re-election as CEO of South Canadia against an old coat with holes … Read more
