Back in 2015

The Tearoom Books blog will be back in early January 2015. Thanks as always to our amazing regular contributors: cherry bomb, Gary Cummiskey, Eva Jackson, Max Moodley, Jenny Kellerman Pillay and Victoria Williams. Much thanks also to our guest contributors.

All In A Day's Dreaming by Gary Cummiskey

V:3

Internet Sentences: 0051

Hey handsome, please send me those cool job stuff that you talked about.

Selfiepinne

M:3

Internet Sentences: 0050

Send me your personal data including your international passport before i send you the full details for continuation of this transaction.

C:6

Q

Victoria Williams: 0278

Two hundred things I did and you still left.
Despite lying like a throw,
Living in the bed,
Calling at three AM,
Taking pills or saying I was taking pills,
And being the only one to know,
Why was it still so easy for you to go?

You were crying, crying,
Like you’d lost a sword fight,
I said teach me the piano,
And after four hours you were crying, crying,
Over the noise I was making.

Internet Sentences: 0049

A letter of Next of kin proposition.

Refugees Cause Cape Town Race Wars

Refugees Cause Cape Town Race Wars by Niren Tolsi and Ben Fogel

Within, Without by Gary Cummiskey

Internet Sentences: 0048

Obtain a genuine university degree in just 10 days based on your work or life knowledge .

L:3

Moz

Victoria Williams: 0277

Alan is back from his lecture tour entitled: What is a functioning human being? (Was that it, just then, what I saw in that room, was that supposed to be it? Was that an example of ‘function’?) And I warm coffee-ish stuff over the gas burner and don’t say anything. I don’t say – 6 weeks early! And I don’t ask did he cancel the dates or did they? Was it his idea to paint the silver line down his nose or was it theirs? (When the spotlight’s on it, he says, it looks a little thinner; less Slavic.) His post at the university... his creative writing seminars (ultimately, he told his students, all you can do is – remember your dreams. And he’d spread out his hands to them.) What is left of it all but a congratulatory fruit-basket, now wizened, sent to him by a woman with his handwriting? We regard each other jealously in the flickering light. Imperceptibly, the curdling of our blood begins. Yes, I will later write in my diary, he made a break for it, but he had to come back; I at least have the comfort of never having left.

A River Runs Through Oslo by Lloyd Gedye

“This is my country!” the blond Aryan male screamed as he stumbled out of a side street directly into our path.

Which Way To Paradise? by Gary Cummiskey

Internet Sentences: 0047

Well well well Tearoombooks ... Shelley Duvall has a fancy for big cock .

O

Victoria Williams: 0276

That beating, bloodied heart, sizzling on a hot-plate, that’s my coat of arms.

Marikana

Marikana: The end of a bitter road promises little closure by Niren Tolsi

Loser wins (losers never win) by Gary Cummiskey

Internet Sentences: 0046

Said bill who were back. Work to that charlotte overholt. Announced bill and soon adam.
Grinned adam has never guess what.

S:4

Victoria Williams: 0275

That man who’s just come in, thrown off his cape and said, ‘take me to the piano;’ that’s my son thirty years from now.

Coolie Odyssey by Vashna Jagarnath

Gaiutra Bahadur’s book, Coolie Woman: The Odyssey of Indenture, arrived on my desk a fortnight ago. It was a surprise gift from my husband. I had been meaning to read Bahadur’s book since it was published a few months ago. When it arrived out of the blue I thought that, with all the work deadlines rushing towards me, it would be a few weeks before I could start reading the book. But when I opened the box there, on the cover, was a sepia photograph of a woman who looked uncannily like my grandmother staring back at me.

Humbled Before The King by Gary Cummiskey

Wet Feet by Diana Bloem

T:2

Victoria Williams: 0274

That man, hammering a nail through a sheet of metal, putting up a house held together with string, that’s my grandfather.

Senzo Meyiwa

Senzo Meyiwa: Walking Where The Grass Never Grows by Njabulo Ngidi

Three Dye Hard Press Titles Nominated For SALA Literary Awards 2014

Gary Cummiskey's Off-ramp has been nominated for the Nadine Gordimer Short Story Award 2014, while Khulile Nxumalo's fhedzi and Kobus Moolman's Left Over have been nominated for the SALA Poetry Award 2014. The winners will be announced at a ceremony in Pretoria on November 7.

Eden’s Garden Path by Diana Bloem

The gravel was hard and wiry while the yellow bamboo barricaded the front. The shells were coiled around the blue star creepers while the hummingbirds aired on the perennials. The crushed stonecrop was damp underfoot while the water cradled sunlight. The sea roses lazed against the stone while the daisies invited wireworms. The air bounced back slitting the butterflies while they were feeding. The beetles used their forceps to leap from the bridge while the sawflies hooked to the carrots. The earwigs displaced the ivy while the twigs spiralled hundreds of  eggs. The blossoms plagued the corn while the matches lay like a foetus. Yali was at the rear end twigging the tulips with the axe.

Victoria Williams: 0273

That man with jaundice carrying the dead tree branch, the swaying drunk with the warts, that’s my lover.

Keeping Music Moving

The Con’s Relebone Myambo take a look at some more recent mobile recording studios on the African continent.

Mirror Of Extasy by Gary Cummiskey

Internet Sentences: 0045

I have a lot of special things I want to discuss with you immediately I hear back from you I am waiting to hear from you soon.

T

Victoria Williams: 0272

That man holding the cigarette to my lips while I’m in handcuffs – that’s my lawyer.
That man firing the emergency flare into the sun, that man painting the crosses on the doors, and that man scraping dog shit off his shoes onto the park bench – they’re my legal team.

Shifty to Sjambok

Shifty to Sjambok: Download the Past

Don't Let The Ferry Get To The Other Side by Gary Cummiskey

Internet Sentences: 0044

It is risk free and legal.

A:3

Victoria Williams: 0271

Driving Slowly at Night in a Red Car
Shuddering around a sharp bend in the dark,
Pursued,
Gained on,
By a ferocious fiery eyed…
We are caught!
We win the prize!
We sit fat in the road,
Moving slow,
As though swallowed by a giant ladybird,
Now beetling along,
Too heavy to take off,
Moving glossy-topped beneath the moon,
At her own sweet pace,
And much bigger than a shoe.
A composer is beside me,
Hitting empty milk bottles with the stick of his brush,
The sound of hollow glass,
Tink tink tonk.

Prince

Prince’s Purple Reign by Lloyd Gedye

Gary Cummiskey: A Dada-Surrealist-Madhouse Screamer

In the Weekly Dissident today, MPHUTLANE WA BOFELO talks to poet Gary Cummiskey, a self described “Dada-surrealist-madhouse screamer” who believes South Africa needs a stronger alternative culture.

Internet Sentences: 0043

Enough time is coming up until terry.

R

Victoria Williams: 0270

[SCRAPBOOK: Becoming a mother is something I think about a great deal, almost to the point of preoccupation. I have heard it said that constant dreaming about birth often signals a desire to birth one's self, to come into one's own. My process of grieving the loss of you has been as much about birthing myself as letting you go.]

Let the Dead Be In Their Un-rest

Let the Dead Be in their Un-rest by Grant Farred

The Icing On The Cake by Gary Cummiskey

Internet Sentences: 0042

Sat in years old white and then.

N:2

Victoria Williams: 0269

Today the ceiling finally collapsed. And as the dust was settling, Alan brushed the roof tiles from his shoulders and said, ‘I know how it feels.’ The piano was broken.
‘Why don’t we play anymore?’ I said sadly.
He said, ‘We are constrained by your age.’
‘Lately I feel as though I can see anything with fresh eyes. Perhaps I am finally being reborn?’
‘No, it is the fact that you are ageing terribly that makes you feel this way.’

Artistic ‘Freedom’ In The 80s And Now

Artistic ‘Freedom’ in the 80s and Now by Jane Duncan

And The Wind Cries Mary by Gary Cummiskey

Internet Sentences: 0041

Last all night, Tearoombooks..

cherry bomb: 0044

Victoria Williams: 0268

After getting my third single ticket,
Finally the usher says ‘Don’t you have any friends?’
And I say,
In 2005 something happened,
Not to all of them,
But to me individually,
And now I love people,
But I forget,
And only remember,
When threatened.

Nat Nakasa

The Unremarkable Nat Nakasa

H

I See You by Gary Cummiskey

Eva Jackson: 0083

Moving On

Some South Africans delight in Moving On
Most of them are young
But we’re in a party, you see, you’re not meant to say
Hey, what the fuck is that dungeon doing in the middle of the floor
Where history is pushing about, sometimes shaking the bars, most times just sitting there
You can choose to ignore it
Maybe abhor it as wrong
To pay it any attention.
History is bobbing about in the keychain hanging from your rear view mirror
As you skip lanes to get ahead
It’s patchworked on the roadside that your keychain distracts you from
It’s in the sound and fury and the absurd laughter
We suffer from

Still others can’t get away
And walk about with history
As a sandwich board enclosing their stomachs and legs
Advertising, but
Hindering movements

The other day a pigeon flew off with some in its beak
Made a reclusive nest
And buried history in there,
Woven in deep.

Voëlvry

Voëlvry: White Noise and Lost Irony

Victoria Williams: 0267

Notes for Alan’s new collection of essays:
Things that destroy lives, No.17: Mobile Phones
I become more and more distrustful of these devices the more I hear about them. They are a new generation of weaponry. Text messages have created monsters who cannot love face to face.
(After thought: It is for this reason I suspect that the missionary position is falling out of favour.)

S:3

Symposium On Contemporary South African Poetry At Wits, 13 September 2014

Internet Sentences: 0040

Are we should he reached into words.

Guns and Veal

Food in Mario Puzo’s “The Godfather” by Vashna Jagarnath

Victoria Williams: 0266

I always bring them to station, to see them off,
And say Fuck You! from the steps,
Couldn’t you tell -
From my pallor and the fuck all about my person,
Except for ransom notes and maps?
My straggling heart,
My nautical eye and the scars,
And the way I held up my finger and cried,
‘My blood was diseased before I’d even begun!’
Then I go to the photo booths in the arcade,
And take another picture of myself,
For the album

P:5

Forthcoming From Dye Hard Press

Internet Sentences: 0039

While dylan is alone to stop.

Shifty Records

Shifty Records: History from Below

Victoria Williams: 0265

Vickie called me up and said: do you want to go get your ears pierced with me? I actually did pick her up to take her to get her ears pierced. She was so afraid she’d spent the day drinking and was swaying when I got there. I thought, a promise is a promise. We went to the tattoo parlour where she’d arranged to have it done but they were suspicious and thought that I had drugged her and brought her there in that condition for some nefarious purpose, so ultimately we drove around for a while and went home. I eventually found a thorn from a rosebush and did it that way. Afterwards she smiled a stupid smile at me, smearing the blood and mascara with the back of her hand. J is coming to pierce my ears, she told me. Well he’ll start with my ears.

N

That Old Feeling by Gary Cummiksey

Silver Shoes by Diana Bloem

cherry bomb: 0043

Victoria Williams: 0264

You were always the one most likely to end up living in one room, with some out-of-work man, nursing his dreams away with your defeatist socialism.

And you were always the one most likely to end up living like a bat in a belfry, up in the rafters, running your bony fingers through the choir boys’ hymnals.

P:4

You Can Go Your Own Way by Gary Cummiskey

Take the Ginger Out by by Diana Bloem

The ginger rhizome was placed carefully in the fridge. I examined it. At first it looked like turmeric and then cardamom. It smelt like the Frenchman I met in South Asia. Mother clustered the Asian buds in white plastic bags. She wanted to sprout the yellow sour figs. Father was landscaping the sherry and mother was washing the sliced oranges. She used subtropical vinegar for fragrance in the kitchen. I had to scrap my reed buds before they withered. Mother began to peel the flesh from the lemons. She brewed lemon juice, palm sugar and ghee to make soup. I added lentils and father removed the frozen wine from the cookie stand. The ginger oils egged the plums and the aroma mildly tasted like clotted fish. The ginger rhizome began to ferment and looked like black salt in candy boxes. The type of candy box the Frenchman gave me in India. The box left him with a cataract.

cherry bomb: 0042

Victoria Williams: 0263

People discover their destiny in newspapers,
Send their fate to the recycling bins...
But I couldn’t make up an answer
To this question,
Of what we will be.

S:2

Strange Things On A Saturday Night by Gary Cummiskey

Södermalm Sinner

cherry bomb: 0041

Victoria Williams: 0262

At the supermarket again. This time headed down the aisle behind the checkouts swinging a gladiola. I’m going to the photo booth, I say to the security guard. This time, you pay for the flowers first, he says.
I skip and hum, a gladiola, over my shoulder…

W:2

Gary Cummiskey at a Poetry Reading in Grahamstown

Eva Jackson: 0082

Sister

cherry bomb: 0040

Victoria Williams: 0261

Archives may be the placebo for the worrying sensation of running out of time. This is intended to become a collection wherein a dense concentration of words will eventually reveal a bigger picture. Some sort of archive of notes and scraps. I won’t have to worry about polish or neglect, and in time we can see where the dust has settled and we’ll have a record.

Reading Is Meaning

Poetry Is by Gary Cummiskey

cherry bomb: 0039

Victoria Williams: 0260

You’ve got some interesting father issues...

C:5