A Last Will For Your Detriment

after ‘Bequests’ by Kevin Higgins

I, Kitty of the Firths
unsounded in this queasy world
invoke these many bold bequests
upon the heads of the priapic primi
pomposities of party patriarchs & aparatchiks
furnish your wine fountainheads & cheese centrespreads
ye deadheaded dulleries, these items to fulsomely enjoy

[may they visit you in your blue sky thinkeries
haunt the despicability of your venal drinkeries
reduce you to the scuff on the scuffed shoes that squirm
about the fleet feet of the cleaner-uppers that scrub stains
from the sticky floors of your reputations]

Item I

the ire of a dram-drunk Highland midge, more
the whole disgruntled genealogy of midges
may they berserk every kagouled dippy picnic
of your sandwich-strewn hay-baled hippy chic

Item II

may the marriage of a rusted key & unyielding tin
splice you from the pads of your pinkie promises
& may you chomp that sweaty slab of corny beef forever
millennia of hard to swallow BS wrapped in lethal armour

Item III

the gape-mouthed masked-shut silent tears
of a pandemic peoples’ damp-sheet sweated fears
& if you crossed the line that you asked them to keep
endless pundits razored tongues to grip you from your sleep

Item IV

forever may you step the spiral stairs to the teetered tower
where you held humanity dangled, rampart tipped its toes
neck wringed it in your greedy grasp! O contemptuous
face now the howling wind of your very own disgrace

About me:

Cáit O’Neill McCullagh is a straying ethnologist in the Scottish Highlands. She started writing poetry in December 2020. Since then her poems have appeared in Northwords Now, Spilling Cocoa over Martin Amis, Drawn to the Light, Bella Caledonia, Lothlorien Poetry Journal, and The Banyan Review. Cáit tweets at @kittyjmac .