Sunday, December 17, 2017

I Remain Indoors by Gary Cummiskey

At last some
sunshine, but still
I remain indoors

Julmust

Jag flyttade till Sverige
för kärlek men
jag stannade i Sverige
för julmusten.

The History Of The Kota, Gatsby And Bunny Chow

Eusebius Mckaiser spoke to food anthropologist  Anna Trapido and Historian  Vashna Jagarnath about the history of the Kota and how food is linked to politics.

cherry bomb: 0047

Sunday, December 3, 2017

New Poems by Gary Cummiskey

Six new poems by Gary Cummiskey published in US online literary journal Empty Mirror.

Victoria Williams: 0320

Texts I have sent, No.3

WHATSAPP GIRL

Her blue ticks
hang in cliques.

Birth Of The Cool

Sunday, November 5, 2017

Collages by Gary Cummiskey

12 new collages by Gary Cummiskey.

Victoria Williams: 0318

I forgot what was happening to you,
Sometimes I succeeded in forgetting and sometimes I had to work at it,
When I got home my boots were full of your fingernails

Getting Ahead

"The boy came up to Niren and stood next to him at the pinball machine. He must have been around ten or eleven and was still dressed in his school uniform. Niren glanced down at him."

Honeymoon

Sunday, September 10, 2017

Adrian Manning: A Poetic Microcosm

"Adrian Manning is an English poet and micro-publisher. He has had a number of chapbooks published, including Wretched Songs For Out of Tune Musicians, Down At The Laundromat, Bring Down The Sun (with Henry Denander), These Days, Days Like This (with John Dorsey) and 13 Poems from the Edge of Extinction. His poems have been published around the world and have been nominated for the Pushcart Prize. He is the founder of Concrete Meat Press, a micro-press that publishes poetry broadsides and chapbooks. He lives in Leicester, England."

I'm Just Kinda Frugal

When I'm in South Africa I buy Med Lemon
sachets to bring back with me to Sweden.
It's my tried and tested cold medicine.
But sometimes I get anxious as the expiration
date on my Med Lemon approaches and I
haven't used it all up yet.
What a waste of this precious citrus-flavoured
paracetamol, I think to myself. Then I go out
and ask folk on the subway to cough in my face.
It's not a sex thing, I promise them if they object.
I'm just kinda frugal.

Wooranda: The Jekyll And Hyde Of Fritters

"Goolgoolas are one of those staples of Hindu prayer-time that I have a soft spot for."

Harafinso

Sunday, August 27, 2017

Ridin' the spheres by Gary Cummiskey

Q&A With Trade Secrets Contributor Pravasan Pillay

"Pravasan recently chatted to Joanne Hichens, curator of the Short.Sharp.Stories Award, about his interest in pulp fiction, trickster folklore and why Chatsworth is the only place he’s interested in writing about."

U.G. Sato

ODE TO A YO-YO

Shall I compare thee to a fidget spinner?
Thou art more lovely and more temperate.
Rough winds do shake the darling buys of May,
And summer’s trends hath all too short a date.
But thy eternal rotations shall not fade,

Sunday, July 30, 2017

Still At Breakfast by Gary Cummiskey

Dolly

Lukka

Lekker
vs.
Lukka

Thanks Vickie!

Sunday, July 2, 2017

The Whole Family Can Play This Game by Gary Cummiskey

Internet Sentences: 0068

"You okay hun
Pm me"

Mukhwas

Bridge

Sunday, May 21, 2017

I Ain't Gonna Let No-one Steal My Jellyroll by Gary Cummiskey

Eva Jackson: 0112
































Fish guarding an egg

Victoria Williams: 0314

What’s your favourite colour?
I don’t have one – that’s racist.

Tacos

Sunday, May 7, 2017

Like Brown Fire by Gary Cummiskey

Eva Jackson: 0111

Home Square

I am in a box

Pitching to left and right between the parking and the garden

Sounds carry through of an engine

Much more powerful than mine and I mime it:

Big fat man behind the wheel

Shouldering other passengers in traffic

Someone’s baby is yawping, crying

Like a Loerie who lived by the house I've just left.

The Future

‘The Libertarian Lenin’ 100 Years On: A May Day Reflection by Nigel Gibson

"Cognition not only reflects the objective world, but creates it. - Vladimir Lenin".

Sunday, April 23, 2017

A Corporate Sell-out (Real Girls) by Gary Cummiskey

Eva Jackson: 0110

Dream

I’m going to an ice rink. Walk in the doors and change near a slightly run down display. I have long red hair and a black fake fur jacket, and a short white skirt. I’m shorter than usual. Something stops me initially from getting onto the ice and I walk on the fringes with my skates on. No hiring, I had them with me. Then I’m on the ice and realise I have no fear of speed, that when I go powerfully fast I remember an assurance and brilliance from some other life. I purposely head towards and scale walls with the lightness and strong momentum, I reach out for greater speed, I made rapid turns and stretch across the ice, and it’s not like figure skating or any skating, it’s just access to pure and perfect speed and control without control. I keep losing my phone, my phone is clearly important to me. I’m recording myself singing in between rushes of skating, and at times the battery falls out and the phone skips onto the ice and I chase it, digging it up with my fingernails because here, it could go through the ice and be lost forever.

Ketchup

The Gentrification Equation

“Look at the road you’re standing in”, says 27-year-old Yusuf Toefy. “You see barber shops, you see fish and chips eateries, you see clothing stores. Now remember how this place looks and come back in a few years’ time. This road is not going to look the same”.

Sunday, March 26, 2017

Beginning Onward by Gary Cummiskey

Long List For Trade Secrets

Thank you to every writer who entered a story for this year's Short.Sharp.Stories Awards anthology, TRADE SECRETS.
The standard was generally high this year which is good news. It means writers expressed care and thought about the theme, and requirements, but also spent time polishing their work more thoroughly in order to give stories the best possible chance to elicit positive responses. As is inevitable, a number of noteworthy stories and stories with great potential could not be accommodated as part of the Long List. Thank you again to every entrant. The next part of the process will be to choose the twenty stories which will make up the Short.Sharp.Stories - National Arts Festival Awards Burnet Media 2017 anthology, TRADE SECRETS, to be published June/ July.
Long List
Alex Smith
Andrew Salomon
Andiswa Kula
Anna Hug
Amy Heydenrych
Bobby Jordan
Christine Coates
Cynthia Kristasamy
Darrel Bristow-Bovey
Duncan Rodseth
Frieda-Marie De Jager
Jo-Ann Bekker
Jumani Clarke
Kamil Naiker
Kerry Hammerton
Linda Daniels
Megan Ross
Michael Yee
Mapule Mohulatsi
Mishka Hoosen
Mmabatho Mathope
Ntsika Gogwana
Olufemi Agunbiade
Pam Newham
Patricia Crain
Philip Vermaas
Philisiwe Twijnstra
Pravasan Pillay
Sally Ann Murray
Sally Partridge
Sean Mayne
Sinovuyo Mcunukelwa
Tim Murithi
Yasthiel Devraj

Eva Jackson: 0108

Nacka

Sunday, March 12, 2017

Another Saturday Night by Gary Cummiskey

Victoria Williams: 0313

Sitting in the library, and I don’t think that my efforts to surreptitiously undo the top button on my jeans are going unnoticed…

Eva Jackson: 0107

Racism And Academic Philosophy In South Africa

"Mabogo P. More, the eminent philosopher, won major international recognition in the form of the Frantz Fanon Lifetime Achievement Award in 2015. Last month he entered the debate that has followed the eruption of acute racial tensions in the Philosophical Society of South Africa with a response to an earlier intervention by Rafael Winkler. Philosophy is not the only discipline that confronts what seem to be unbridgeable divides. A number of senior academics have declared their refusal to publish in or collaborate with the official Political Science journal and significant tensions are brewing elsewhere. In the interests of giving more space to the critique of the racism entrenched in parts of the South African academy The Con has decided to publish the full version of More’s response to Winkler. More has recently completed two new books, one on Biko as philosopher and the other on More’s own experiences as a black philosopher in South Africa. We look forward to publishing excerpts from both of these books when they are published."

Sunday, February 12, 2017