after Charlotte Nichols MP
I didn’t know the meaning 
of &#8220;incursion&#8221; 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”. 
Didn’t know “dirty”, “asocial”, “expel”. 
The connotations of “a people involved 
in the manufacture of human freaks.” 
Didn’t know the meaning until now 
of “Rahoonery”, “pollutant”, “Pharajimos”. 
The problematic side of those over the age of five 
being taken away and civilised. 
Didn’t know the meaning of “The Devouring”, 
“The Cutting Up”, or “behind concrete walls”. 
The negative connotation of “whoever kills one, 
shall be guilty of nothing.” 
Didn’t know the meaning of “deport” 
until I saw it done this morning, 
clean as a Police Superintendent’s signature 
or a Councillor’s campaign for re-election.

Poem: The Candidate Explains

If this boy had been more prudently 
dropped into life on, say, a street 
with trees that throw out their annual yellow 
to make a welcome parade for the sun; 
had as childhood neighbours a Circuit Court Judge 
whose front door had no letter box, 
a Garda Chief Inspector with an opinionated 
and over-confident dog; 
kicked a ball up and down summer evenings, 
dead apart from the occasional well behaved bee, 
with the boy next door (but one) who blossomed 
into a political correspondent 
and now gets to make up truth, 
another way would’ve been found.
But for coming at Gardaí 
with a chemical imbalance, 
what some people are calling 
a machete 
and a totally inappropriate 
post code, 
the only sentence 
was that ethically administered, 
democratically accountable, 
bolt action firing squad.
The eminent and learned 
bottoms we employ to sit 
on the inquiry into this 
need not fret the task ahead of them. 
For their report is already written.
&nbsp;
<pre>Photo Credit: <a class="owner-name truncate" style="color: #808080;" title="Go to Paolo Trabattoni's photostream" href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/mctraba/" data-track="attributionNameClick">Paolo Trabattoni </a>/ Flickr</pre>

Garda Police

Poem: The Case of George Nkencho

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 rate 
by zero point five percent, 
and is a little too insistent 
that poor people be allowed live, 
give or take, as long as the rest of us. 
That sort of thing scares the people we dine with 
nights we’re not dining with you.
I ask the barman for more finger food, 
picture the ocean raging into the restaurant, 
and them still sat there muttering at the chicken goujons: 
the people we talk to won’t vote for 
such extreme solutions. No one wants to live in Cuba, 
one of them says, as she’s washed out the door.
I pray, when all the futures 
they’ve turned their noses up at 
are safely in the mud 
and the men in boots and leather come 
to escort us all to the Processing Centre 
in the back of a truck 
that I be shot, cleanly through the skull, at the front gate, 
so I don’t suffer their groans 
about the quality of the gruel, 
and how that last beating one of them got 
was clearly in breach of the Human Rights Act 
and worthy of a curtly worded, 
but still civil, letter to The Observer.
&nbsp;
<pre>Photo Credit: <a style="color: #999999;" href="https://unsplash.com/@henniestander?utm_source=unsplash&amp;utm_medium=referral&amp;utm_content=creditCopyText">Hennie Stander</a> on <a style="color: #999999;" href="https://unsplash.com/s/photos/barman-restaurant?utm_source=unsplash&amp;utm_medium=referral&amp;utm_content=creditCopyText">Unsplash</a></pre>

Kevin Higgins_hennie-stander-O3oIr1j65EM-unsplash

Poem: Our Posh Liberal Friends

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 in it.
The barrel of waste was trailing 
histrionically among professors emeritus 
whose brains were in the process of being dismantled 
by lethargy and time, and among those 
who, as and when the stock market permits, 
take a year off to celebrate their dividends 
by doing good works among brown people in far countries 
not lucky enough to have stock markets or dehumidifiers. 
Such people agreed with each other that the barrel of waste 
made the raging boil on the nation’s privates 
way too obvious, and hoped by throwing 
the old coat over it they could again 
forget it was there.
The barrel of waste said the old coat couldn’t deliver 
on the promises he wasn’t making, 
and maintained good leads among morticians, 
pimps, and police informants 
and had the total bastard vote 
ninety nine percent sewn up &#8211; 
in essence everyone except the late John DeLorean 
and perhaps Alan Dershowitz.
There was a minority faction who wanted the boil 
on the nation’s privates given free antibiotics, lanced 
with a big needle imported from Sweden 
and then cauterised. But most people found 
though they were in favour, in their hearts, 
of lancing the boil, 
in practice they were for 
allowing the boil to grow redder, angrier, more toxic 
under the old coat with holes in it.
So the minority extremist faction 
who wanted the thing treated 
were sentenced to the echo chamber 
to argue about whether the old coat 
with holes in it really 
was the lesser evil.
The midwife of history, 
grown bored with the year twenty twenty, 
had decided to play one of her jokes.
&nbsp;
<pre>Photo Credit: <a style="color: #999999;" href="https://unsplash.com/@jontyson?utm_source=unsplash&amp;utm_medium=referral&amp;utm_content=creditCopyText">Jon Tyson</a> on <a style="color: #999999;" href="https://unsplash.com/s/photos/trump-biden?utm_source=unsplash&amp;utm_medium=referral&amp;utm_content=creditCopyText">Unsplash</a></pre>

jon-tyson-Lmy2OAZlwb0-unsplash

Poem: The Joke

After the sizzle and spit of my flesh going up 
like bacon thrown on eight hundred degrees centigrade, 
when my bones have been mashed to their final powder, 
handed to you in such a civilised pot 
and you’ve flushed 
or scattered them – a fistful each – 
in the front gardens of those you know hate me 
(them that have front gardens; them that don’t 
put a little of me quietly through their letter boxes) –
I will inhabit the air, 
take the form of 
the absence of certain smells; 
the absence of my tannin caked mug 
leaving brown rings behind itself 
on the coffee table by the sofa; 
the absence of wrong political predictions 
I’ll no longer be around to deliver 
with the wave of an absolute arm 
during your favourite TV crime drama, 
so you can hear neither 
and wish I’d come with a mute button; 
the absence of traces of shaving foam 
kindly donated by me 
in the now pristine bathroom sink 
which will gleam at you like the teeth 
of a presidential candidate 
conceding defeat.
For my absence, like my presence, 
will be the mess 
you’ll never exactly succeed 
in completely tidying away.
&nbsp;
<pre>Photo Credit: <a href="https://pxhere.com/en/photo/892133">PxHere</a></pre>

poem-coffee-table_newsite

Poem: The After Life

I wouldn’t have you back. 
With your nice houses and good schools 
on the better side of wherever. 
You installed (or tried to) in each of us 
the tendency to come out in a loud red rash 
on the days we could find no one to be better than. 
You were always issuing updates. 
We downloaded them in our sleep.
Normal, you’ve made the world 
a place nobody belongs.
Even our hugs and handshakes – 
now banned under plague-time legislation – 
became a thing transactable on Instagram.
For you are more savage by far 
than the guy who spends his evenings watching otters 
be decapitated on Youtube.
Even the woman across the road’s premature last breath 
is a stock you might invest in.
And though you’re not exactly dead – 
those whose only contribution 
would have been to steal earrings 
off children obliterated in the blitz 
before the bits had been tidied away 
are, as ever, on the lookout for something to nick – 
we see now your fabric unwinding until it’s 
string we can remake 
any shape we want.
Normal, you’re just a script 
given us by the Publicity Department 
which we acted out for so long 
we believed 
you were all there ever could be.
&nbsp;
<pre>Photo Credit: The National Guard via <a style="color: #808080;" href="https://flic.kr/p/2iH7eRL">Flickr</a></pre>

Poem Normal &#8211; Coronavirus &#8211; New_Site

Poem: Normal

The Commissars yet to be assigned their desks; 
you pick today to text: 
“What have the revolutionaries ever done 
for the likes of me?”
And it reads like the ravings 
of a depressed person at a bus stop 
with a hole in his shoe, 
who has better shoes at home, 
but is saving them; a guy 
who sleeps on a mattress 
with a tear in it, and a stray spring 
stabbing him in the night; 
though he bought a new bed 
months back, he never 
got it delivered, 
and the shop thinks he’s died.
For he loves the feel 
of that spring cutting into his back, 
the way a well adjusted slave 
loves Pharaoh 
being there on his throne 
to complain about.
&nbsp;
<pre>Photo Credit: William Murphy via <a style="color: #808080;" href="https://flic.kr/p/EsqMzV">Flikr</a></pre>

Ireland Elections Poem New_Site

Poem: The First Dissident

after Dennis O’Driscoll
That this cannot be avoided by everyone wearing protective glasses. 
That the contents of their half-full cups are about to evaporate. 
That the University will remain closed until further notice. 
That Kim Kardashian’s arse has been abolished. 
That the idea of tomorrow is suddenly quaint as a dinner plate made in West Germany. 
That the price of house insurance just went up ten thousand per cent. 
That the lack of reception on their mobile phones isn’t because they’re going through a tunnel. 
That even the hairstyle of the Fox News anchor woman is no longer perfect. 
That Adolf is now the second most hated politician in history. 
That the station at which this train terminates no longer exists. 
That the priest who’ll give them last rites is just a guy in an outfit 
his brother recently wore to a fancy dress. 
That God is a skeleton who knows everything and will one day talk.
<pre>Photo Credit: <a href="https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Kim_Kardashian_%26_Ashley_Graham.png">Wikimedia Commons</a></pre>

Poem What They Don&#8217;t Know Is &#8211; Kim_Kardashian_Ashley_Graham

Poem: What They Don’t Know Is

Introduction
In &#8216;Past&#8217; – among other things – I remember my friend James who was an anti-poll tax activist and a member of the Labour Party for a bit in Edmonton in North London when I lived there in the early 1990s. James went missing seven years ago and I feel I know for sure he&#8217;s no longer with us, as I know if he was he&#8217;d be in touch some way to chinwag over recent events. He&#8217;d say something like: &#8220;So, Kev, does this [Jeremy Corbyn becoming leader] mean socialism is back?&#8221; And I&#8217;d reply, &#8220;It might, me auld mucker, it might.&#8221; And then he&#8217;d tell me to PLEASE put my tea mug on the coaster he&#8217;d provided for it (and spent the morning polishing).
I recruited James to both the British Labour Party and the Militant Tendency in the early nineties – those were the days! – and watched the 1992 UK General Election results with James in his tower block flat in Shropshire House, London N18 and I know, if he were still with us, he would phone me this week.
I am travelling to the UK this week, to nearby Chingford, where I&#8217;ll spend Monday and Tuesday campaigning for Faiza Shaheen who has a good chance of unseating former Secretary of State for Work and Pensions Iain Duncan Smith, to whom <a href="http://www.the-platform.org.uk/2019/01/22/poem-ode-to-iain-duncan-smith">I have paid poetic untribute elsewhere</a>.
James was always a great man for doing the grassroots stuff that a lot of the more theoretical socialists find challenging. No better man to convince a little old lady called Edith, or Flo, who wasn&#8217;t sure how she was going to vote yet. As I walk the streets of Chingford and Woodford on Monday and Tuesday, I will be thinking of James.
&nbsp;
<h5>Past</h5>
Past clicks ajar the box 
you thought you’d locked it in 
and starts walking in your direction. 
Under its right arm, it carries a kitten 
you’d thought long dead 
which is delighted to see you 
and licks your hand 
in the hope of butter or salt. 
Past fishes your friend out of whichever 
European river he went into 
and deletes the message 
you got from his cousin asking 
if you’ve seen him. 
His hair, still the same 
Judas Iscariot red. 
Yours, its increasingly inferior 
imitation of its ex-self. 
You talk hours 
about coming revolution 
which, like the kitten, 
you remember burying 
but which now magically offers you 
an opening comradely hand. 
Past takes its spade 
and digs up your old defeats, 
offers to turn them into victories 
if you’re prepared to gamble 
on losing again 
and pain which even now haunts, 
like the tooth you tried 
but failed to extract yourself.
<pre>Photo Credit: Faiza Shaheen / <a style="color: #808080;" href="https://twitter.com/faizashaheen/status/1198355194557476864/photo/1">Twitter</a></pre>

Faiza Shaheen

Kevin Higgins joins the Labour Party campaign for marginal seats in memory of James

Poem: Past

after Buffy Sainte-Marie
Over wishy-washy tea in the office canteen, 
or when you’re condemned to sit beside him 
at the after party of a funeral, 
the unsub speaks his principles 
like he’s eight foot one; 
but is back down to his usual 
one foot eight when 
the vote on anything’s taken.
Though he says so himself, 
it took monumental bravery 
for a man of his measurements 
to come loudly out in favour of 
homosexual marriage the day after 
it was legalised everywhere.
He’s taking at face value what the Director of the CIA 
told Congress yesterday. He’s arguing in favour 
of the First World War. On balance, he’s for 
his country and China continuing to mutually 
pleasure each other; of selling more 
helicopters to Saudi Arabia. He’s too busy 
giving King Leopold of Belgium’s efforts 
to civilise the Congo another second chance 
to indulge your wild theories.
Be it the proposal to limit the right of landowners 
to gun down vagrants wandering 
onto their property; the suggested legislation 
to make mandatory the rescue by their employers 
of children wedged up chimneys; 
or the phasing out of compulsory 
female circumcision; he’s in favour of everything 
when the circumstances permit 
and all bar Sir Rhodes Boyson’s corpse concur.
He’s the Universal Moderate, 
forever holding up the bit between 
those who want to slaughter six million 
and those who “unrealistically refuse to consider” 
killing even one.
<pre>Photo: <a style="color: #808080;" href="https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Lib_Dem_party_conference_in_Bournemouth_2019_21.jpg">Wikimedia Commons</a></pre>