“The Stop the War Coalition passed a resolution recently
saying the resistance should use “any means necessary.”
Johann Hari, The Independent, January 7th, 2005
Nothing against the dressing gowns smoking
by the main, revolving door;
nor the young men ambulanced here
weekend nights with suspected
broken heads.
But when the flapping tongue that tagged
the man dragged from his chicken wire cage
to be beheaded over the internet
another broken egg
for the anti-imperialist pancake;
that says what it’s told to say
by some guru with no face
and John Lennon glasses;
that still mutters its dream —
world of barbed wire and bricks
to keep us in —
takes time out to shout:
Save Our Health Service,
it makes me want to die
in a cold hospital
with no running water, under
the one remaining fluorescent light
which, when the last doctor flees
for the relative safety of Mogadishu,
will begin to blink madly;
where the only thing
that’ll make my trolley move
up and down the corridor
will be the insects.
KEVIN HIGGINS
Kevin Higgins is co-organiser of Over The Edge literary events in Galway, Ireland. He has published three collections of poems The Boy With No Face (2005), Time Gentlemen, Please (2008) and Frightening New Furniture (2010) all published by Salmon Poetry. His work also features in Identity Parade – New British and Irish Poets (Ed Roddy Lumsden, Bloodaxe 2010).
