Back in 2013

We'll be back in the New Year. Thanks as always to our wonderful regular contributors: Ana Drahotusky Bruketa, Gary Cummiskey, Eva Jackson, Danielle Naidoo, Max Moodley, Michelle Nair, Jenny Kellerman Pillay and Victoria Williams. Props also to our guest contributors.

Eva Jackson: 0028

You make me want to study theology
You make me want to lie face down in the sand
And fill my mouth and come up like a sculpture
You let me out of where I was standing
In the rainy corridor beside The Rainbow in Pinetown
With little wet dog-ends and the plastic bags catching on the wire.
You make me want to learn the origins of the poison-arrow frog
Like I knew as a kid
And to be able to explain again to people
How the many kinds of dog
Grew from one
And we made it so, and we make
This so.
You don’t believe in evolution,
And I tried to do the macro- from micro- account
And talking about dogs,
All disorderly
And you are still not convinced.

M

Victoria Williams: 0181

I’m sure that we’ve all had an indiscretion or two when our girlfriends-slash-boyfriends are out of town.

Don’t call me your girlfriend-slash-boyfriend.

Spaza: 0011

Click on photo to enlarge.

The hawker's setup is essentially a deconstructed spaza. She has found a floor. The tree functions as a roof. 

Two re-purposed bread delivery-trays hold her wares, which in turn rest on an easily dissembled trestle table. A standard cooler box sits at her feet. An upturned Coke crate functions as a makeshift seat for her customers. (The crates are often used as seats in informal businesses and spaces.*) 

Bread trays. Coke crates. Cooler boxes. Three mass-produced objects that are ubiquitous in the so-called informal economic sector. They're popular for good reason - they're light, sturdy, cheap or free, portable, and easy to clean. 

*The cheapness and availability of Monobloc chairs and high plastic stools has resulted in the crates not being used as much anymore. 

Wikipedia on Monobloc:

"The Monobloc chair is a lightweight stackable polypropylene chair, often described as the world's most common.

Based on original designs by the Italian designer Vico Magistretti in 1967, variants of the one-piece plastic chair went into production with Allibert Group and Grossfillex Group in the 1970s. Since then, millions have been manufactured in countries including Russia, Taiwan, Australia, Mexico, the United States, Italy, France, Germany, Morocco, Turkey, Israel and China. Many design variants of the basic idea exist.

The Monobloc chair is named because it is injection moulded from thermoplastic polypropylene, the granules being heated to about 220 degrees Celsius, and the melt injected into a mold. The gate of the mould is usually located in the seat, so ensuring smooth flow to all parts of the tool. The chairs cost approximately $3 to produce, making them affordable across the world.

Social theorist Ethan Zuckerman describes them as having achieved a global ubiquity:

The Monobloc is one of the few objects I can think of that is free of any specific context. Seeing a white plastic chair in a photograph offers you no clues about where or when you are."

Internet Sentences: 0017

I got your email from a comprehensive online search done by my secretary.

Source: Junk Mail

1-Inch Short by Gary Cummiskey

Eva Jackson: 0027

Starting over

And the poets would begin to read.
One would have a blue silk cap
And hail from far away
One would have the wild long hair.
They would set no store by blushing;
They would give you the stare, and if
You got it wrong, well then.
Some have already used their beginning years,
They have lost whatever shoes they needed to lose
Cast off degrees, suddenly;
By degrees I am buried.

Internet Sentences: 0016

It is with profound respect and humble submission, I beg to state the following few lines for your kind consideration.

Source: Junk Mail

Victoria Williams: 0180

Dear Mr. Tolstoy.
How are you? I am fine. My name is Vickie and I am 9. I have three toes on my right foot and I’ve named them Anna, Karen, Nina. It’s my best foot and I’m putting it forward.

Paint

She Was Standing On The Steps by Gary Cummiskey

Eva Jackson: 0026

We bit the small pink sponge of the China-berries
Brought on fainting fits with fast breaths and then holding it,
I ran after the scuffed soccer ball
With no sense of where it was going.
We circled each other in a “battle of wills”
We pressed our eyeballs until the white lightning came,
Sifted through sand for glinting yellow pieces.
We ran and kissed one another
Skirted the end of the field
Where shallow men, warned of, hid behind
The diamond gaps in the green wire fence
And the highway’s noise moved down the slope.
You told us, “by god, if they come over that fence, you run!
I’ll pick up the small ones, and you run.”
You were our teacher, who were these hordes
That would come?
A colonial hangover, the knowledge that,
Sooner or later, with small children
And their teachers basking in the sun
We’d be looking down the barrel of a gun?

Internet Sentences: 0015

This is my fifth times of writting you this email since last year till date but no response from you.Hope you get this one, as this is a personal email directed to you.

Source: Junk Mail

Victoria Williams: 0179

I remember at the wedding, she was a guest, and crisper than the wine. She sniffed and said, ‘I have seen them in the bath. Not like lovers but like playmates.'

Manu by Danielle Naidoo

This Is Tomorrow Calling by Gary Cummiskey

Eva Jackson: 0025

pocket 

Zaheer: Johnpallor:-)couldn'thulkny:-pal:-)jol)notional
me: absolutely.

Shy Saras

Shy Saras (1995, Gudari Press) by Max Moodley. Shy Saras is a 16-page, hand-made, handwritten chapbook about an Indian woman who has a sexual awakening. 5 chapbooks were made. Out of print.

Victoria Williams: 0178

We got caught in something called a hail storm... it was just like when mamma would put us in the bath tub and pour frozen peas over us. That crrrrssshh of the fall and the tap and snap on the bath of the peas as they bounced. The pinch of our skin as it tightened in the cold. It was just like that.

Fizz

Bird Goes To The Mirror by Gary Cummiskey

Eva Jackson: 0024

Nietzsche and Mushi on Cruelty to Cars

All in all, punishment hardens and renders people more insensible;
it concentrates; it increases the feeling of estrangement;
it strengthens the power of resistance.
Let us be kind to our cars
they move us in space and time
and throw away wheels so that we can preserve legs.

Dead Spit by Danielle Naidoo

B: Don't spit on the street.
G: Where should I spit then?
B: Swallow it.
G: I'm not gonna swallow dead spit.

Victoria Williams: 0177

I showed up on the doorstep prepared to ask if I could stay. I knew that if you didn't say yes immediately then I would leave.

Internet Sentences: 0014

* We are sorry if this message will arrive in your bulk/spam mail section *

Source: Junk Mail

Drawing Twenty One January-2002 by Gary Cummiskey

Eva Jackson: 0023

It was a speaking silence, I thought
Then you said, we never talk.

Max Moodley: 0070

Victoria Williams: 0176

You’ve stopped taking drugs: good for your health maybe. But at what cost to your personality?

Max Moodley: 0069

I shouldn't have worn the bow-tie.

Drawing Twenty January-2002 by Gary Cummiskey

Eva Jackson: 0022

You are my Rodriguez

You are my Rodriguez
Even your mouth looks the same as his
The way he looks sidelong and the camera stares.
In the houses he cleared, the construction dust
On him as he came home
To his wife and children.
You look straight
Or would, if you were here with me, at the screen
Seeing the story unfold about him
About how he became famous
Against all odds of ignorance, and was claimed.
I claim you, I’ll show them
I see you.

Metaphors For Abandonment

Metaphors for abandonment: exploring urban ruins. Excellent post over at Rosemary Lombard's fleurmach.

Victoria Williams: 0175

The nights are much longer now that I’ve started drinking again. But what to do with the new hours – I still haven’t found a satisfying answer...

Max Moodley: 0068

Sun Waster by Gary Cummiskey

Eva Jackson: 0021

Demonstration

We looked up from the dune at the undersea club,
Sunk in the stretch of sand frequented by white people:
No deeper tan.
He had given away the embroidery ring
Used to demonstrate the tool to others. They wanted that as well.
The commodity was a small needle
Crafted with a bronze spring
Which you push into the thick linen, tufted in places, which he held in place
Over the margarine tub.
The back of the eye is the front of the needle: put it into the cloth the wrong way
And your whole project unravels, picks itself
Back to the start.

Internet Sentences: 0013

I like people for what they are and not for what they are not.

Source: Junk Mail

Victoria Williams: 0174

If it was just in my head it would be fine, but it’s in yours as well... said the man on the bus.

A Note From Alan Finlay And Paul Wessels, Editors Of The donga Anthology

it’s been a while… so much has happened… we’ve seen god, we’ve seen the alpha and the omega… paul beat mr death at his own game… so did stacy years later… alan holds out against the city folk… lionel and mark didn’t make it… the mud that caked our ankles has long since crumbled to sand and lies now like mementos of a long forgotten past on our unswept floors…  we returned to the dugout a time ago, no sign of the lean-to, the ashes in the fire pit long blown away to reveal the grey earth of countless catfish braais… the wind caressed us, carrying off our tears as we turned to leave that place forever, having now gathered the words…

lionel abrahams
robert berold
lauren beukes
nadine botha
toast coetzer
gary cummiskey
jané dowd
clinton v du plessis
quen emmenes
graeme feltham
richard fox
stacy hardy
august highland
stephen hofstätter
aryan kaganof
chris kraus
bernat kruger
greg latter
arthur mafokate
dawie malan
joan metelerkamp
ike mboneni muila
pravasan pillay
leonhard praeg
lesego rampolokeng
arja salafranca
kelwyn sole
bill stobb
rayno van rooi
ivan vladislavić
paul wessels
stu woolman

apologies to those who do not appear in the anthology. no hard feelings. gary from dye hard and allan from botsotso bankrolled the project and we gratefully squeezed in as much as we could. maybe next time…

I Only Have Eyes For You by Gary Cummiskey

Eva Jackson: 0020

All the wireless connections
Are washed up onscreen suddenly multiplied
Like flotsam and jetsam, after a night tide and I
Think of you.

Internet Sentences: 0012

I bring to you a proposal worth $ 9,000,000,000.00 (Nine Billion United State Dollars) which i intend to use for CHARITY.

Source: Junk Mail

Victoria Williams: 0173

He says: can we cut to the chase? It’s painful to keep batting my eyelids at you like this.

Spaza: 0010

Click on photo to enlarge

Another example of a spaza constructed from corrugated sheeting. The scrap metal on top of the spaza helps to prevent the roof from being blown away by the wind.

Drawing Nineteen January-2002 by Gary Cummiskey

Eva Jackson: 0019

Internal therapist

I’m making a salad.
-Why?
Because it’s healthy.
-Why else?
Because, I’m hungry.
-Why else?
Because I’m copying someone else.
-Why?
We’re not going there.

Internet Sentences: 0011

I Will Prove Who is the Best in the World! This is huge news.

Source: Junk Mail

Victoria Williams: 0172

It’s what he would have wanted, as any ghost will tell you, is a phrase extremely overused by the living.

Spaza: 0009

Click on photos to enlarge. 

Spazas are typically housed in prefabricated or repurposed structures - e.g. the shipping container from a few weeks ago. Here we see examples of original constructions, spazas built from corrugated metal sheeting. Metal sheeting is arguably the most important building material in South Africa - both in townships and so-called informal settlements, where it is used to build shacks. Much like shacks, spazas built from sheeting range in size and design.

Drawing Eighteen January-2002 by Gary Cummiskey

Eva Jackson: 0018

Writing in a small notebook from Japan
uCele ucambalele ocansini ecabanga icebo lokuciba ucilo eceleni ngocingo olucijile.
uCele ucambalele ocansini, he sleeps on a mat, planning to shoot
A little bird
In the side
With a sharpened wire.

Internet Sentences: 0010

Email Us For A Loan Toady.

Source: Junk Mail

Victoria Williams: 0171

Bus Experiences: The rain outside, the steam on the bus, the warmth of a stranger’s thighs.

Internet Sentences: 0009

Although, we have neither met in person nor by communication.

Source: Junk Mail

Drawing Seventeen January-2002 by Gary Cummiskey

Internet Sentences: 0008

I write you this massage with tears and sorrow.

Source: Junk Mail

Eva Jackson: 0017

Internet Sentences: 0007

It is nice and joyful to found you on the Internet search. I thought is beautiful to make you a friend in this regard.

Source: Junk Mail

Victoria Williams: 0170

The passer-by said: Excuse me, why are your teeth rattling?

Internet Sentences: 0006

You think, ladies and gentlemen, to express our feelings the most respectful.

Source: Junk Mail

Drawing Fifteen January-2002 by Gary Cummiskey

Eva Jackson: 0016

Aubade

And they were clicking at their desks. You said:
No more
Stay here where the sheets lift you,
High above the gardens,
And sleep.
Spend time on the parts of me
That will turn out not to know you.
Come break an egg
Into the nothing emptiness of our kitchen
An onion swimming in a dish of water in the fridge,
To keep it fresh.

Melville Poetry Festival 2012

Victoria Williams: 0169

Viewing the new manuscript, he said: I’m not sure if it’s worse, or just as bad.

Spaza: 0008

Click on photo to enlarge.

Spazas are often housed in re-purposed shipping containers. 

Drawing Fourteen January-2002 by Gary Cummiskey

Eva Jackson: 0015

This goes out to the quiet landlady
Walking around her tenants’ house while they are out
Lifting and dropping
Her crucifix shining.

100 000 Poets For Change - Johannesburg, September 29, 2012

Victoria Williams: 0168

Talking to plants to stimulate them: ‘What’s wrong with you??’

Screwed by Rosemary Lombard

i was a nut;
u bolted.

Drawing Thirteen January-2002 by Gary Cummiskey

Eva Jackson: 0014

Durban remodelled: one huge hill of suburbs, long grass, strong winds, silent streets. Your family's house was halfway up or towards the top of the hill. It was built on a pronounced slope, a deck, a tree, and many cages with poultry birds inside. They moved, white, orange parts, spattered the mesh, looked at home. You came back and graffitied the cages, with words suggesting to the birds that it was about time they left. The cages or the city, not clear.

There was a party, I lost my phone, I bargained with a petty thief on the road to get it back or a similar one.
Higher up on the hill, J had also come back, his family lived there. His face scrunched up when he smiled at his mother. They tore up a log for firewood and found a corpse. As the question unfolded of how it had gotten there, a river opened up, flowing down from the top of the hill. I looked out over the slow drop and realised that it was an effort to stop denying, and to look at the sea. When I did, I was aware that I was meant to find it beautiful, or to be in awe. But I felt fear. Of falling, of being swallowed up, of the inconvenience of wet feet, of the breakers. They were encroaching on the land now, and the river leading down was rimmed by rushes, lying flat in the flow. The waves so distantly below were enormous, dark green, foaming and rolling.

When I was in Grade Eleven I met a girl at a poetry competition. She wrote of a feeling of cuspness, of waiting to meet, greet and taste "all the shades of the bitter sea".

At some point I was in the river, moving towards the sea, turning shallow corners.

Veertien Monoloë Deur Skarminkels, Losers En Idiote

Literator 32(3) Des./Dec. 2011:149-199 

Krueger, Anton and; Pillay, Pravasan. 2010. Shaggy – 14 rather amusing rambles. 

Pretoria: BK Publishing. 131 p. Price: R135,00. ISBN: 978-0-620-50458-4. 

Resensent: 
M.L. Crous 
Nelson Mandela Metropolitan University Port Elizabeth 

Tradisioneel is ‟n shaggy dog story ‟n besonder langdradige relaas vol kenmerkende irrelevante insidente en die slot grens dikwels aan die absurde. Dit is wat die skrywers van hierdie veertien monoloë probeer nadoen, maar dis opvallend dat hulle stories kort en soms op die man af is. Hulle hou doelbewus nie by die oorspronklike pa-troon nie.

Die outeurs spot met die akademie, lewer kommentaar op uitbuiters en manipuleerders en soos wafferse nasate van Horatius en Juve-nalis val hulle bepaalde swakhede in die samelewing aan. Die spre-kers in die monoloë is figure wat ‟n mens in die alledaagse raakloop: die afgeleefde akademikus, die uitbuiterkunstenaar, die grapjas, ‟n eertydse satanis en die skottelgoedwasser-cum-taikoen wat die spot dryf met die Kambodjaanse bevrydingstryd en soos ‟n wafferse see-rower Jenny in besit is van verskeie besighede in Margate. Margate in Natal en Germiston aan die Rand speel ‟n sentrale rol. Margate spog selfs met sy eie M.I.T.

Soos dit ‟n satirikus betaam, dra die skrywers ook deeglike kennis van die konteks wat betref dit wat hulle bespotlik wil voorstel. “The Beans” handel byvoorbeeld oor iemand wat ‟n bemarkingsvergade-ring toespreek en dan die beeld van ‟n blikkie bone gebruik om sy punt oor te dra. Uit sy reaksie op die onsinnighede wat die groep kwytraak, lei ‟n mens af dat alles op dowe ore val en hy sluit sy voorstelling met ‟n kragwoord af.

Deurgaans word ook met eietydse studente se verwysingsraamwerk gespot. Hulle kan assosieer met popkultuur en is dikwels in staat om die belangrikste literatuurteoretiese begrippe uit te spu, maar tot meer as dit is hulle nie in staat nie. Ook feministiese herskrywings en herlesings van byvoorbeeld die geskiedenis word onder die loep geneem. In “The Director” word ‟n Jamie Uys-gedenklesing gelewer en spot die spreker heerlik met die Suid-Afrikaanse filmbedryf met sy toilethumor.

‟n Satirikus is nie altyd te eksplisiet nie. Hy spot deur middel van die taal, deur middel van ironie en deur onderspeling en ‟n mate van oordrywing. Soos met alle goeie satires is dit belangrik dat ‟n mens dit in lewende lywe sien afspeel. Om Nataniël of tannie Evita op papier te lees, is nie naastenby so snaaks soos om hulle op die verhoog te sien nie. Myns insiens is dit ook die geval met hierdie “nogal amusante” stories – die subtiele humor ten spyt.

Victoria Williams: 0167

Some kind of proselytising neo-Baptist... his feet barely touched the floor.

Skugga

Ensam svart handske
ligger på väldigt vit snö.
En kvarglömd skugga.

Drawing Eleven December-2001 by Gary Cummiskey

Eva Jackson: 0013

There was a halo around the sun today
Formally.
Round featherheads
Crept into the corner. Open louse
Found cousins deep
In albatross. Buried in as we wing
In slow arcs above our rippled
Thousandth doom.

Invite To The Cape Town Launch Of Donga

Victoria Williams: 0166

Poems... or are they symptoms?

Tomma

Tomma ölflaskor
i en park på Södermalm.
Sommaren är full.

Eat me, Alice by Gary Cummiskey

Eva Jackson: 0012

- Did you know that Angelina dressed a substantial wound with a sanitary pad? Yeah. Remember that when you’re on the run.

- In Cambodia?

- In Salt.

Victoria Williams: 0165

The curious phrase, ‘never completely recovered.’ Aren’t we all a bundle of incomplete recoveries?

Spaza: 0007

Click on photo to enlarge. 

The cement stoep is built around the date tree. Shade is essential in a humid, subtropical city such as Durban.

A Renegade Eye For Turner by Gary Cummiskey

Eva Jackson: 0011

Delhi 2

Across from the Qutb Minar is Al Minar. A huge unfinished masonry core, meant to be the base of a tower, abandoned project. Surface covered in rock protrusions. A smoky hole up near its top, like a hot needle's been pushed through. Walking around we see several more gapes, where it had thrust across again at right angles, through into the blue. Flash of long-tailed green - parrots - parakeets - nesting? - in that hole, and the brown furred darting of Delhi squirrels up the rockface - a vertical life of small creatures.

Internet Sentences: 0005

"And If You Don't Want To Make Fast Cash on Monday, SURELY Don't Look at This."

Source: Junk Mail

Victoria Williams: 0164

And he’d installed listening devices in the confessional at St. Cuthbert’s.

Spaza: 0006

Click on photo to enlarge. 

It's somewhat unusual for a freestanding spaza to be painted white. This one perhaps takes its colour cues from some of the prayer flags. Judging from the unusual dimensions, the spaza also appears to be an original construction and not a prefab or a re-purposed container. The fence in front of the spaza is a interesting mix of symmetry and asymmetry.

Drawing Ten December-2001 by Gary Cummiskey

Eva Jackson: 0010

Delhi 1

The crows at Safjardung's tomb knew it was a deserted part of the city. The trees' leaves were not just dusty, but dark. Birds' droppings covered the sarcophagus once you had climbed the steep steps. A lonely dancefloor, a square, flagstones stepping out, loomed over by the dome. A thin railing round the perimeter. A view in four directions across winter lawns and crows. Symmetrical: a set of dry fountains, each surveyed by its own distant, white building pressed up against the fence of the property. For this must be a property, and owned and neglected by someone, or ones. By a city.

Internet Sentences: 0004

"Imagine how large of a buzz will a concern with a huge invention to save people's lifespan could possibly generate!

Good Luck!"

Source: Junk Mail

Victoria Williams: 0163

We’re identity thieves but we’re choosy. We magpie bits of you, but fail to make them our own. We turn away from an un-faceable internal emptiness; a vacant rib cage; a shrunken and dying personality. I’m a thief without a heart, looking to steal one. Also we’re currently working in a library and keeping a low profile... on the run from renegade psychiatrists.

Spaza: 0005

Click on photo to enlarge. 

Of note here is the serving gap that is ingeniously built into the fence. The gap - by design - is just large enough to pass a loaf of bread through. Bread, milk and cigarettes are arguably the basic trinity of spaza shop items.

Drawing Nine December-2001 by Gary Cummiskey

Eva Jackson: 0009

more rose more rose

Book launch: donga, There Are Two Birds At My Window, Meditations of a Non-White White and Botsotso #16

Victoria Williams: 0162

After all the surrogate-father-figure-accusations, it was embarrassing to have to ask him for some money for lunch.

Spaza: 0004

Click on the photo to enlarge. 

A hallmark of township architecture is remixing. On the right, a basic apartheid-era council house. On the left, a remixed council house - now with a balcony and a spaza shop.

Drawing Eight 10-2001 by Gary Cummiskey

Eva Jackson: 0008

time is precious

He replies to Nigerian princes, telling them if they are stranded, they should stop emailing strangers.
The best thing would be to contact the nearest embassy.

Polis, The Arena

Victoria Williams: 0161

Hey remember when I was drunk and you were interesting?

Spaza: 0003

Click on photos to enlarge. 

The service window is flanked by date trees and one climbs up what resembles a bamboo staircase. The act of buying your bread and milk becomes a brief tropical holiday.

Drawing Seven 10-2001 by Gary Cummiskey

Eva Jackson: 0007

Road Trip

The credits roll up

The deep voice starts

You have become the chirruping voice of darkness in me.

We visited the palm trees where they say the raffia vultures roost

You have become the chirruping voice of darkness in me

There were no vultures.

You tried to charm the innkeeper

(really it was the proprietor of a timeshare in Zinkwazi Beach)

You have become the chirruping voice of darkness in me.

And you succeeded. You did not succeed.

New From Dye Hard Press: Meditations of a Non-White White by Allan Kolski Horwitz

Allan Kolski Horwitz’s latest collection of short fiction, Meditations of a Non-White White, scrapes away at superficial assumptions and brings to life a multitude of characters whose issues and concerns have dominated post-1994 South Africa but are in many respects timeless. The stories probe the limitations of middle-class norms and blinkered identities, and grapple with the diverse experiences of those living beyond privileged ghettos. 272 pages.

ISBN: 978-0-9870178-6-4

Estimated retail price is R160. If ordered directly from the publisher, the price is R130, including postage.

Victoria Williams: 0160

Of all the silly ways of saying I don’t love you anymore, screaming why won’t you play badminton with me, at three in the morning, in your sleep, was the most profoundly hurtful. (All the things you say in your sleep cut deepest.)

Spaza: 0002

Click on photo to enlarge. 

The spaza muddies the line between the private and the public. Here the idea of the fence is subverted; instead of keeping out, it invites in.

Drawing Six 9-2001 by Gary Cummiskey

Eva Jackson: 0006

paper package

Imagine
spending your morning
stuffing paper down the pants
of a mannequin.

Ana Drahotusky Bruketa: 0023