A Dish Made by Myself 
(after Neruda) 
 
I’m sick of tray bakes, pies in the sky 
banquets, vol au vents, pastrami on rye 
I want delectable. I want something else 
So, here’s a dish I created myself 
 
I am at the table surrounded by cooks 
in tall white hats, holding meat hooks  
They are going to make merry with my insides 
and prepare an andouillette stuffed with spice 
 
They cut a deep incision above my bottom 
Turn my intestine into one big sausage 
The sous chefs add garlic, salt, wine and onion 
They truss me up to give me a final pummel 
 
I choose my head to be served as a main  
So out of my orifices, they squeeze my brain 
it spills from my ears, a grey mucous sauce 
crammed with crunchy bits, thick and coarse  
 
They whisk it with vigour and drizzle on my tongue 
itself yanked out of my jaw, and secured open 
by tiny cheese cocktail sticks staked into the gum 
My eyeballs are glazed and marinated in urine 
 
Thus, I am dished, an andouillette and a head 
wordless, stylish with a French vinaigrette 
they say I am served best with a little green gem 
and to toast my health, raise a glass of phlegm. 
 
Afters will be sweetbreads scored from my heart 
a selection of my stomach, chest and throat 
This is my offering, basic fare, honest food 
I’m happy to be sacrificed for the greater good. 
 
 
Andouillette is a French coarse-grained sausage made from the intestine of pork, pepper, wine, onions, and seasonings. Andouillettes are generally made from the large intestine and are 7–10 cm in diameter. True andouillettes are rarely seen outside France and have a strong, distinctive odour coming from the colon.  

On My Death Bed
 
I will not be calling out to any gods  
though I'll probably drop Satan a text to thank him
and his daughters
for some of my more lively afternoons.
 
I will not be signing forgiveness treaties with the Frauds
but do tell them to stick their heads in the door  
when it's least convenient
so I can stare at them and say nothing
and listen to their sphincters creak.
 
The rest of you who were just being
your honest arsehole selves
I forgive, absolutely
and hope you forgive me
my arseholeness.
There were days
it was all I had to offer.

KEVIN HIGGINS is co-organiser of Over The Edge literary events in Galway. He has published six full collections of poems: The Boy With No Face (2005), Time Gentlemen, Please (2008), Frightening NewFurniture (2010), The Ghost In The Lobby (2014), Sex and Death at Merlin Park Hospital (2019), & Ecstatic (2022). His poems also feature in Identity Parade – New Britishand Irish Poets (Bloodaxe, 2010) and in The Hundred Years’ War: modern war poems (Ed Neil Astley, Bloodaxe May 2014). Kevin was satirist-in-residence with the alternative literature website The Bogman’s Cannon 2015-16. 2016 – The Selected Satires of Kevin Higgins was published by NuaScéalta in 2016. The Minister For Poetry Has Decreed was published by Culture Matters (UK) also in 2016. Song ofSongs 2:0 – New & Selected Poems was published by Salmon in Spring 2017. Kevin is a highly experienced workshop facilitator and several of his students have gone on to achieve publication success. He has facilitated poetry workshops at Galway Arts Centre and taught Creative Writing at Galway Technical Institute for the past fifteen years. Kevin is the Creative Writing Director for the NUI Galway International Summer School and also teaches on the NUIG BA Creative Writing Connect programme. His poems have been praised by, among others, Tony Blair’s biographer John Rentoul, Observer columnist Nick Cohen, writer and activist Eamonn McCann, historian Ruth Dudley Edwards, and Sunday Independent columnist Gene Kerrigan; and have been quoted in The Daily Telegraph, The Independent, TheTimes (London), Hot Press magazine, Phoenix magazine, The Daily Mirror and on The Vincent Browne Show, and read aloud by Ken Loach at a political meeting in London. He has published topical political poems in publications as various as The New European, The Morning Star, Dissent Magazine (USA), Village Magazine (Ireland), & Harry’s Place. The Stinging Fly magazine has described Kevin as “likely the most widely read living poet in Ireland”. Kevin’s poetry has been translated into Greek, Spanish, Italian, Japanese, Albanian, French, Russian, & Portuguese. One of Kevin’s poems features in A Galway Epiphany, the final instalment of Ken Bruen’s Jack Taylor series of novels which is just published. His work has been broadcast on RTE Radio, Lyric FM, and BBC Radio 4. His book The Colour Yellow & The Number 19: Negative Thoughts That Helped One Man Mostly Retain His Sanity During 2020 was published in late 2020 by Nuascealta. His extended essay Thrills & Difficulties: Being A Marxist Poet In 21^st Century Ireland was published in pamphlet form by Beir Bua Press last year. In December 2021 Kevin was both expelled from the British Labour Party, of which he was an overseas member, for publishing his poem ‘Tribute Acts’ in Socialist Appeal magazine and, on the very same day, awarded ‘Poet of The Year’ at the Labour Heroes Awards event at Conway Hall, London. Kevin now writers a regular book review page for Village Magazine, mostly focussing on poetry. This year Kevin received a dozen nominations for the position of Ireland Chair of Poetry – Ireland’s Professor of Poetry. Ecstatic, Kevin’s sixth full poetry collection was published in June 2022 by Salmon Poetry. For the past month Kevin has been in University Hospital Galway, where he is receiving chemotherapy for Acute Myeloid Leukaemia.