Tag: Kevin Higgins

Tribute Acts – timely poem from Kevin Higgins

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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 you

a glass of water and, if you ask,

tea in a slightly chipped cup.

 

The better quality of witch hunt

will provide you with a plate

of sandwiches which, these days,

would likely include

coeliac and vegan options.

 

One member of the panel interviewing you

is always a man with a shakey voice

who obviously doesn’t know what he’s doing.

His wife thinks he’s at the garden centre.

 

Another is a woman trying

on a posh accent for size

who looks like she’s dreaming

of killing you

in some way that would give her

special pleasure.

 

It is written,

somewhere deeper than law,

that no such committee

shall ever be constituted

unless it contains

at least one ex-hippy.

 

There is always the moment

when a pile of typed pages emerge

from an already opened envelope,

and one of them asks you:

how, then, do you explain this?

 

And the three of them sit there,

pretending it’s a real question.

 

And you realise this committee is history

paying you the huge compliment

of making you (and people like you)

the only item on the agenda;

 

that in asking you about what you said,

did, or typed on the mentioned dates,

they reveal themselves

like the black tree at the bottom of the garden

that only shows its true self in winter.

 

KEVIN HIGGINS

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

By Uncategorized ,

Kevin Higgins’ poem, censored by the Morning Star

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Listening Exercise
after John McDonnell

When you paint hatred on my garden wall
and front door, I will read your words
with great interest.

When you try to burn my house down
I will listen to what the flames are saying.

Every lie you tell against me
I’ll help you spread
by earnestly, and in detail, answering your questions
about it over and over again.

When you burst through my living room door
with a chainsaw intended for me,
I’ll pour you a nice cup of tea
and say: let’s talk about this.

When the tumours come for me
I’ll know their opinion must be taken
absolutely on board.

And when the beetles and bacilli
begin to consume me,
I’ll realise I’ve long seen
their point of view.

Kevin Higgins

On Thursday, Kevin Higgins’ poem ‘Listening Exercise’ (above) – concerning the ‘massive listening exercise’ called for by UK Shadow chancellor John McDonnell amid accusations of antisemitism against the British Labour Party and its leader Jeremy Corbyn – was published on Broadsheet, on the UK based site Culture Matters, and online in The Morning Star newspaper.

It was also to appear in the Morning Star‘s print edition last Saturday.

Before some high level politics intervened.

1) E-mail received from Cliff Cocker (Arts Editor of the Morning Star) Thursday, February 28.

Hi Kevin

Timely and spot-on. Will try and get online asap and in paper on Sat.

Cheers

Cliff

2) E-mail received from Cliff Cocker (Arts Editor of the Morning Star) Friday, March 1st, 9.17am

Hi Kevin

Here it is, in print tomorrow. Cheers C

3) Email received from Ben Chacko (editor of the Morning Star) March 1, 1:04pm

Dear Kevin,

I’m afraid I’ve pulled this poem because things are on a knife-edge in the shadow cabinet and at the moment our friends there advise exacerbating divisions would make things worse.

I do appreciate the poem and the many biting poems that you have written for us, but the sensitivities right now mean publishing it in the Morning Star would in our view feed the divisions that the right are trying to exploit.

That doesn’t mean we will stop fighting back against bogus accusations and we will be continuing a robust defence of Chris Williamson and attacks on the so-called Independent Group, but we just feel targeting John in this way now is not the right approach for us.

I hope you aren’t too angry that this time I want to hold back and that you are OK with continuing to publish poetry in the paper.

Solidarity and all the best,

Ben Chacko

Kevin says:

“It is great to know that my poems are being read by member’s of Jeremy Corbyn’s Shadow Cabinet. This poem was intended as friendly advice for Shadow Chancellor John McDonnell, albeit that it is satirically delivered, as is my way.

I understand the pressures people are under at the moment, and am in no way angry at the editors of The Morning Star for the action they felt they had to take here. I plan to continue published poems in The Morning Star, as I have since they asked me for my satire on Tony Blair in 2015.

I do stand over the poem which I wrote while eating lunch last Friday week in the Arabica Coffee Shop on Dominick Street, immediately before one of my poetry workshops at Galway Arts Centre…”

Kevin Higgins

By discussion & debate ,

Anatomy of a Bomb scare – by Kevin Higgins

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Anatomy of a Bomb scare

for Jacqueline Walker

 

Tasks such as this are typically implemented

on deniable mobile phones,

ordered by a raised eyebrow or nod

fourth or fifth floor

of an unpainted, concrete building,

about which no more can be said because,

for reasons obvious to both

The Guardian and the Daily Star – though they

choose different language to say

so – the security services never comment on

operational matters.

 

It’s the unanimous advice of a committee

of twenty seven former Attorney Generals,

the Chair of the BBC board of governors, and all ex

Archbishops of Canterbury (living and dead)

that for reasons of national well being no record must be kept

of the twitchy eyebrow or official looking

nod of the head in question. Such things are done

by loyal servants of things as they must remain

when sending round Balaclavad policemen

(and women) might prove counterintuitive.

 

On rare occasions some independent maniac

in a top floor flat with hardly any windows

who generally speaking couldn’t organise

a butt rub at a tantric sex party,

to which he’d never be invited anyway,

inspired by the sweaty ravings

of our Twitter bots which unlike Russia’s

don’t exist, miraculously manages to plant a bomb,

and as at Bologna, Dublin, Monaghan

puts a mass of concrete and angle-grinders asunder,

leaves jaw and shin bones separate

from the heads and legs to which they were

until seconds ago attached, there

in the foyer for some rank and file cop

to collect, bag and label;

or drives a box of nine inch nails

into what we consider politically expendable eyeballs

at five hundred kilometres per hour.

Such actions are a bonus

and we welcome their contribution

to our ongoing struggle,

though they’re not officially sanctioned.

 

 

Mostly our task is to convince

people we don’t exist,

except in the minds of pink eyed conspiracists;

to tend the fungus doubt

that the likes of you,

dear victim,

probably divide your Mondays

between subsidised yoga and phoning in threats

against yourself.

 

KEVIN HIGGINS

By discussion & debate , ,

What I Told the Psychiatrist – for Pete Willsman, by Kevin Higgins

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What I Told the Psychiatrist

for Pete Willsman

 

The cat pads downstairs and its claws

take their hate out on me because

he’s been up there re-reading his copy

of The Protocols of the Elders of Zion,

which, one of these days, I’ll find

if it kills me, which I expect it will.

 

Then the wife joins in with an unprovoked

“Are you really wearing that?”

against one of my more

avant-garde jumpers, and I realise

it’s a symptom of her

longstanding admiration for

the architecture of Albert Speer.

 

And there’s the shop assistant who

by her very body language accuses

me of being a veteran

of Yom Kippur and member

of Israel Military Intelligence,

each time she rings up my

Vichy bottled water.

 

And those who’ve previously

marched and written against

anti-Semitism but now give

tacit endorsement to the policies

of the General Government of Poland

(nineteen thirty nine to forty five)

by disagreeing with me

about the price of parsnips,

or deciding to support

Leicester City. Worst of all is when

 

bank holiday weekend traffic

gets suddenly constipated, and some

random driver takes his pain out on me

by mouthing horrible words

through his windscreen

because he knows I’m Jewish

 

even though no one in my family

ever previously was.

 

KEVIN HIGGINS

 

 

By discussion & debate ,

Kevin Higgins: new poem on Tony Greenstein’s expulsion

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The poet Kevin Higgins has been suspended from the party for writing this satirical poem about the Blairs. 


We Are Delighted To Announce
for Tony Greenstein  

The first execution of a man convicted
of using inappropriate language – far too many
exclamation marks and block capitals – to tell
what we realise is ninety nine per cent the truth,
has been successfully carried out.
And it was surprisingly clean.

Bloodless as an office team building session held
in an hotel specially built to mop up the overspill
from the booming funeral parlour next door.

The screeching was confined to
a few pseudonymous moderates
post-coitally whispering the hope
that this legally implemented death
not be the last of its kind.

We must be sure and include
our least favourite black woman, the Irish,
and, at a minimum, one more Hebrew
in the commonsense cleansing we envisage.

KEVIN HIGGINS

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

By discussion & debate , , ,

Letter to Labour Party NEC: Suspended for writing a poem

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Dear Brother and Sister,

January 12 2018

Until very recently the political balance on Labour’s National Executive Committee meant that decisions concerning suspensions and referrals to the NCC appeared to be rubber stamped.

Following today’s elections of a further 3 constituency members it is widely hoped and expected that there will now be a socialist majority on the NEC. From now on there is no longer an excuse for the witch hunt of socialists.

Nothing can be more ludicrous than the suspension of poet Kevin Higgins for writing a satirical poem about Tony Blair. It is only the most oppressive countries that persecute poets. Nothing can be more unjust than members left suspended, often for months, without information as to charges against them, without regard or due care for the effect this has on members lives and reputations.

We know of a number of members in this situation who have been put at risk of severe depression and suicide.

As you know, at the present time the cases of Tony Greenstein, Jackie Walker and Marc Wadsworth are going to the NCC. Nothing can be more absurd than a socialist party seeking to expel Jewish, Black and life-long anti-racists for the ‘crime’ of having upset the supporters of Zionism & Israel.

The fact that these suspensions are so avidly reported by Britain’s most racist tabloid press – the Daily Mail, Express and Sun – gives the lie to the suggestion that these suspensions have anything to do with ‘anti-Semitism’. Does anyone seriously believe that papers which employ Richard Littlejohn, Katie Hopkins et al are seriously concerned about anti-Jewish racism?

Shami Chakrabarti, in her Report recommended that ‘The Labour Party should seek to uphold the strongest principles of natural justice, however difficult the circumstances, and to resist subjecting members to a trial by media.’ Eighteen months later these Chakrabarti proposals have not been applied in any meaningful way to the disciplinary process. Members being processed by the Compliance Unit have been subject to repeated leaks to the media, in a clear breach of the Data Protection Act.

We call for a freeze in all disciplinary actions as and until the Chakrabarti Report’s recommendations on due process and natural justice in regard to the disciplinary process have been debated and implemented.

In Solidarity

Jackie Walker – Chair, Labour Against the Witch-hunt
Tony Greenstein – Vice Chair, Labour Against the Witchhunt

By campaigning, suspensions and expulsions , , , ,

The curious case of Kevin Higgins, suspended for writing this poem

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Poet Kevin Higgins has been suspended from the Labour Party for over 18 months, apparently for writing this satirical poem about the Blairs. For background to this case see here.  

What Did The Politician Get His Wife?

after Bertolt Brecht

And what did she get, the girlfriend,
from the student union meeting
at which he rose to his feet
and realised he could speak?
From that meeting she got
the Snickers bar he forgot to eat
so busy was he watching them listen;
and that speech, unabridged,
every other night for thirty five years.

And what did she get, his new wife,
from the time he first used a party
conference microphone to agree with both sides?
Those okay with the Moslems/Mexicans/Gypsies being here,
and those who want them kept over there.
From that microphone she took away their
invitation to dine with the Deputy Mayor
and his not new wife.

And what did she get, his no longer new wife,
when, at the second attempt,
he won that seat on the City Council?
From his election she got to drink Pinot Noir
and go swimming in their private club
with the no-so-new wives
of those who got the contracts
to make the paving stones and install
the pay-and-display ticket machines
during his years as Chairman
of the relevant committee.

And what did she get, his well-maintained wife,
the night he was elected to the big shiny
parliament? From that night she took away
an architect to re-design their new three storey pad
in the priciest possible part of the capital,
and an article about herself
in the Daily Express lifestyle pages.

And what did she get, the no longer new MP’s
no longer new wife, the morning
they made him Minister?
That morning she got to go horse riding
with the Leader of the House of Lords’
fourth (or fifth) wife..

And what did she get, the no longer new
Cabinet Minister’s wife, the night the landslide
made him Prime Minister? That night
she got to hold to her breast
invitations to break foie gras
with the Sultan of Brunei, the President of China;
and the chance to write husband’s speech
announcing the crackdown on beggars
who accost hard working
families who stop to ask for directions
en route to the nearest funeral parlour.

And what did she get, the ex-Prime Minister’s
no longer new wife, from all the depleted uranium shells
he had dropped during the Battle of Basra, all the soldiers
he sent to meet improvised explosive
devices in far Mesopotamia in the hope
of getting rid of something bigger
than the beggars and prostitutes
at Kings Cross. For these she got
white night terrors
of him on trial for all their crimes,
and the desire to never again
look out the front window of their fine
Connaught Square house
at the tree from which, it’s said,
they used to once string
traitors.

KEVIN HIGGINS

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