Guest poem by Kevin Higgins
When Israel, by mistake,
terminates four boys on a beach in Gaza;
or the Member of Parliament
for somewhere far gets caught
on camera rolling – between
his immense folds of flesh – boys
from several different orphanages,
generally speaking,
I’m against it.
I’m on what the world tells me
is the right side.
When it’s nowhere I’ll ever live,
I speak out bigger and braver
than Ché Guevara
in an armchair.
When the cops
inadvertently walk in on
one of our deputy deputy Mayor’s
regular visits to the Kindergarten
I’m there with a tea towel
or bit of curtain to cover
his purple rear. Or
if a man I do business with
gets done for
taking cash from invalids
for crutches that never arrived,
I kill such gossip
with administrative silence,
because I’ve thirty years’ experience
not commenting on individual cases,
which are none of my concern
nor yours, neither.
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 featuresin 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 blog is here.