Eyewear is pleased to celebrate the 40th birthday of Irish poet Kevin Higgins today, with a poem of his. Higgins is one of the best of the new generation of Irish poets, and by far the most savage in his wit. His new book from Salmon is forthcoming in 2008.Days
We’d let the Daddy-long-legs take
the tower-block hallway,
as we took time out
from demos in support
of those more fortunate
than ourselves
for a feast of taramsalata
on vintage brown bread
washed down
with the best can of Kestrels
a fifty pence piece could buy.
Our kitchen sink may have been
a failed utopian experiment;
the revolutionary group we’d just joined
a corpse passing wind.
But all we needed was
a draft to sit in
to talk about Agent Orange;
and with your rolled cigarettes,
my missing teeth,
we were insurgents waiting
to be hanged at dawn;
as we watched
the flat be torn apart
by a Keith Moon cat.
All dressed down
and someone to be.
Whatever happened to alienation?
Those were the days.
We’d let the Daddy-long-legs take
the tower-block hallway,
as we took time out
from demos in support
of those more fortunate
than ourselves
for a feast of taramsalata
on vintage brown bread
washed down
with the best can of Kestrels
a fifty pence piece could buy.
Our kitchen sink may have been
a failed utopian experiment;
the revolutionary group we’d just joined
a corpse passing wind.
But all we needed was
a draft to sit in
to talk about Agent Orange;
and with your rolled cigarettes,
my missing teeth,
we were insurgents waiting
to be hanged at dawn;
as we watched
the flat be torn apart
by a Keith Moon cat.
All dressed down
and someone to be.
Whatever happened to alienation?
Those were the days.
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