Renewable Energy: Cora Sherlock’s Excellent Suggestion by Kevin Higgins

“Over 15,500 human remains incinerated to heat UK hospitals over 2-year-period.  #800babies #outrage @amnesty” Tweet by Cora Sherlock of the Pro-Life Campaign

Renewable Energy: Cora Sherlock’s Excellent Suggestion     We must stop giving it away for nothing –our greatest natural resource – the Department of Finance estimates Tallaght Hospital could heat itself entirely on foetuses properly burnt in one of those state of the art energy efficient furnaces that are all the rage in Sweden.   Within the lifetime of this government every hospital in the country could be fuelled by the unwanted contents of visiting wombs. The minority of cranks aside, the average foetus would be delighted to make this small contribution towards society’s continued warmth.   And when the ban on contraceptive devices is re-introduced; every last diaphragm, IUD, cock-ring, and bit of rubber ribbed for your pleasure incinerated in a field outside Ballinspittle, after a blessing by Mother Teresa, (specially flown in from the black beyond) and the conception rate soars back towards the traditional twelve pregnancies per lifetime, two thirds, we estimate, resulting in terminations, we can start talking about the export market.   Economists say the uteruses of the greater Dublin area alone could light the living rooms of a medium sized British city, such as Bradford.   Education is key. To get the lady parts of the country conceiving as they’ll have to, every pubescent girl, on her fifteenth birthday, will be shown her way around the first twenty pages of the Kama Sutra by a fully qualified curate under the age of seventy.   This policy’s success will abolish talk of deficits and oil prices. Instead, we’ll debate furiously whether to blow our vast surplus on a few thousand more unemployed tin whistle players with the hint of an English accent, or free nose jobs and tummy tucks for the wives of the wealthy—the biggest plastic surgery project in world history since NASA’s unsuccessful attempt to build another Joan Rivers.     © KEVIN HIGGINS, 2014

Kevin Higgins is co-organiser of Over The Edge literary events in Galway City. He has published four collections of poems: Kevin’s most recent collection of poetry, The Ghost In The Lobby, was launched at this year’s Cúirt Festival by Mick Wallace TD. His poems also features in the anthologies Identity Parade – New British and Irish Poets (Bloodaxe, 2010) and in The Hundred Years’ War: modern war poems (Ed Neil Astley, Bloodaxe May 2014). His poetry was recently the subject of a paper titled ‘The Case of Kevin Higgins: Or The Present State of Irish Poetic Satire’ given by David Wheatley at a symposium on satire at the University of Aberdeen; David Wheatley’s paper can be read in full here . Mentioning The War, a collection of his essays and reviews, was published by Salmon in April, 2012. Kevin’s blogs at Mentioning The War.

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Protected: The Non Herein- by Michael Mc Aloran

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‘World Put to Rights’ by Kelly Creighton

World Put to Rights The dream that burst riverbanks held you; blackstrap molasses, antidote for your poison. Your plummets spraying wetness like a coin in a cascade woke no-one, not even us. The church spire grew legs, scaled bricks, ran to your side, spotlighted. I put glass over that glow. Quiet-huff of your refuge, flailing arms, spluttering snores. Ungainly crooning tunes to the realms of purity; I found too sickly-sweet. You fought the humdrum, from your seat. You would sleep outside, would sing, stand on ledges mollified. I won’t sing, no matter what. Float on, keep your whistles of booze-hounds. When I awaken I will join you, watch for me. World Put to Rights is © Kelly Creighton , all rights reserved. . You can read more about Kelly at the following link.  Kelly Creighton/ Ceallach O Criochain is an Irish artist, writer of fiction and poetry; born in Belfast in 1979 she writes about contemporary relationships and local landscapes. Kelly has previously published poems and short stories in anthologies and magazines.Currently her poetry is in literary ezines including A New Ulster, Lapwing Publications. Recently her work was feature of the week in Electric Windmill Press.Kelly is editing her novel Yielding Fruit, a historical fiction set in West Yorkshire, she is also compiling her first collection of poems. Index of Women Poets http://issuu.com/amosgreig/docs/anu_issue_4 http://electricwindmillpress.com/

“We Protect the Weak” by Kimberly Campanello

We Protect the Weak We protect the weak and call it love or ethics. For the safety of our students this door must remain closed at all times. Ani yalda tova. I am a good girl, I tell the Israeli jeweler who is impressed with my Hebrew. Someone nearby says, Fuck Israel. I offer, I am a bad girl. Ani yalda ra.   To dance is a kind of paralysis. Muscles contract in a certain way and we call it beautiful. The men on the beach made me think they were dancing tango, but instead one was helping the other will his feet to remember   walking. If I had withered hands and always gave you your pen with my teeth would you think it beautiful? For the continued safety of our money these checkpoints must remain closed at all times. For the quality of our progeny these legs   must remain closed at all times. These minds. This mouth. This heart. Why don’t you substitute your for these and this? See how it feels. Ani yalda ra. Feel that. Feel me feel you. Tell me I’m good and bad. Tova and Ra. Let us be both…   © Kimberly Campanello Kimberly will be reading at the  National Concert Hall, on Thursday, December 6th 2012. Kimberly will be read her poems on the sheela-na-gigs in Strange Country, a new work by composer Benjamin Dwyer for uilleann pipes, tape, and poetry. More information and booking details can be found at www.nch.ie. We Protect the Weak was previously published in the pamphlet, Spinning Cities (Wurm Press, 2011). Kimberly read this poem at Catechism, Readings for Pussy Riot, in Dublin. .

Kimberly Campanello was born in Elkhart, Indiana. She now lives in Dublin and London. She was the featured poet in the Summer 2010 issue of The Stinging Fly, and her pamphlet Spinning Cities was published by Wurm Press in 2011 . Her poems have appeared in magazines in the US, UK, and Ireland, including  nthposition , Burning Bush II, Abridged , and The Irish Left Review .

Pic by Brian Kavanagh

‘Pussy-Riot Forever : The Body’ by Philo Ikonya and Helmuth A. Niederle

Pussy-Riot Forever : The Body 

 I riot, You riot, We riot.
 

The body riots.
 

Arterial riot
Breast riot
Cheek riot
Eye riot
Finger riot
Gall bladder riot
Intestine riot
Jaw riot
Knee riot
Liver riot
Mouth riot
Nose riot
Prick riot
Palate riot
 

Riot in Queues
 

Renal riot
Stomach riot
Testes riot
Thigh riot
Tongue riot
Umbilical riot
Vagina riot
 

Vocal cords riot
 
Waist riot
Wrist riot
X-ray riot
Yin Yang riot

Zeee riot 

Dictators Never : Roll-Call

Aferworki Isaias riot
Ben Ali riot
Bashar al Assad riot
Castro riot
Duvalier Jean-Claude (Baby Doc!) riot
Ershad Mohammed Hossain riot
Franciso franco riot
Ghadaffi Muamar riot
Ghasmi Ahmad riot
Hugo Chavez riot
Hitler Adolf riot
Hussein Saddam riot
Idid Amin riot
Jean Bidel Bohassa riot
Kim Jong II riot
Lukashenko Alexander riot
Mugabe Robert riot
Moi Daniel Torotich Arap riot
Noriega Manuel riot
Ortega Daniel riot
Pinochet riot
Pol Pot riot
 

Putin Putin Putin Putin Putin Pussy Riot !

© Philo Ikonya and Helmuth A. Niederle.

Thanks to Philo Ikonya and Helmuth A. Niederle for permission to reproduce their two poems from Catechism for Pussy Riot. The book is available for a small donation via the English PEN website, here.
 
I read it Wednesday 21/11/2012 at the Grand Social as part of this event, and which I have linked in this blog, here. I read a new poem of mine called, Precarious Migratory Spectacular.
 
Philo Ikonya is a writing colleague of mine from PEN International and the PEN International Women Writer’s Committee. I am linking here to her website and blog.