Animal eyeball

m i n A

y e al

Gary Cummiskey and Paul Warren

l l a eb

Animal eyeball Gary Cummiskey and Paul Warren poems and collages

Published by Dye Hard Press Johannesburg Gauteng South Africa http://dyehard-press.blogspot.com Published 2024 © Individual writer and artist

Acknowledgements ‘Cat runs countryside’ was originally published in Birds, Orphans & Fools (France).

All rights reserved.

Design and layout: Jenny Kellerman Pillay Cover art: Paul Warren. The front-cover collage is titled ‘Animal eyeball’ and the back-cover collage ‘I have you none to hallucinate’.

contents

TV monitors midnight

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The fluid horse

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Leaking dreams

11

Purple talisman

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Cat runs countryside

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Bite white universe

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Sunday for sorcery

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down the lonely lapping up my animal eyeball

They watch how TV monitors midnight

TV monitors midnight

Morning bursts through green pond slaughter. She kissed my eyes and collapsed the mountains while Motown water of sunshine lips and clouds link given to regiments of murdered singer. Car crash sight of skyscraper holiday doused in pain. Summer back in passenger seat she looked an atmosphere of money and orders turned into firecrackers they watch how TV monitors midnight then ear-blind mother. On form and hell-bent street not knowing the drunken neighbour without panties who broke into the bank, her hair I sent river through great waves of governance and though I am redeemer but nothing sweet Maputo sunshine hours. Her ears are summer eating up the blue-smoked sky.

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She fails to follow through

The fluid horse

Watch how the fluid horse moves from poet head with jet-fighter goodness. She has walked through flag of Xtasy. We desire rehab blues though body has been moved through poet’s head and old King Kong in light dawn 70s. She fails to follow through the trancelike purple and poised black when gunfire ripped up one/two books of lyric work and fell through ceiling screaming face in backside u ­ mbrellas filled in. Kiss her dress torn shrieks. They smoked white stuff and kissed and fled into the wait for humankind as otters come with stark eyes open and self-proclaimed self-portraits giving honey and obscurity … through transfer twilight dried in share white sight now dervishes overcome her voice.

9

Leaking dreams

Leaking dreams

Celestial policeman with mad gun screeching through score and point-blank battles down the ­lonely lapping up my animal eyeball. Filthy ­needles in her vein she saw newsreels of your leaking dreams. She won’t name the city and cars filled up naked with broken comb.

She published from the halls of corporate clutter then bookmarks and ­razors entered live and desire ate up ribs from kitchen. Green apple with pirate’s sneeze ­explored dawn. My summer sunshine cow with mouth ­dripping hot wet thighs. I am lost into my eyeball.

I have you none to hallucinate breakfast banana like Thelonius Monk.

11

We do not go into the centre of eternity

Purple talisman

Aid bursts bright on banks of muddy Vaal then lights up fired revolver listening streets and baldheaded kids. We told the lawyers we came from lunchtime. We do not go into the centre of eternity, only horses and home from school along the tongue-tied road of teeth.

We move on springbok stroking wands in downtown making friends aged 6 to 10, the poster boys in bed deposited like a pill in Joburg. Nearly divorced our gravity of wine and delusions. We decided best to ­avoid construction sight. There is no aligned my armed guard follow whipped in street pick-up. Your purple talisman is the best excuse.

13

Come down in hard drops

Cat runs countryside

Come down in hard drops. Unfamiliar suburb. Jeans hot and sticky and cigarette smoke stranger turn­ around and pull bastard humming mid-70s Dylan tracks on star-stuck fantasy. Macbeth is showing ­tonight at theatre fools. We hit the loud roar city ­running orange light operation with HVM in pocket stand with onions fried and wandering lot. Never trust you out of sight. Black-leather-jacketed youth on strong and hide smell of drunken fall. Red bus ­winding its way, though never to home. Cat runs country­side upstairs with long-haired hippy in overheated bookstore in reds without light. Bleed bleeding bleak sky torn with street rain police straight burger stand. Just a teenager lost in bed station.

15

Blown sad by wind

Bite white universe

Doors open, let the crazies out to roam. I remember how he used to walk up morning fools with hacksaws and sunglasses landing on the roof of New Year’s Day aged 16 and tarred road. She wore a green winter coat.

Restraining order, he kept going back. Was touched on painkillers. Stealing books and sunglasses that fell from his head. Lost girl in Scotland as she entered his head blown sad by wind. The predawn street and terrify the early going past lady got out and lost bits of paradise. I bite white universe from the local library to be a little place. Was loaded shrine they needed behind these walls of light.

17

She sleeps in the tent of the breakfast jingle

Sunday for sorcery

Collapsed truncated biopsy try to put on face ­doomed to future glory risk. Eyes fly into eternity. An ­airplane headed from Nigeria to Afghanistan. Sunday for­ ­sorcery. Good girl, she told many lies, she never make it. She sleeps in the tent of the breakfast jingle.

Discovered two weeks after the neighbour’s roof. My plastic choking drumkit belting all-night radio tunnel smugglers. Watch out, man, we blew our balls off with hand-soaked wet in dark skies decomposed.

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Watch how the fluid horse moves

biographies

Gary Cummiskey is a poet, short story writer and publisher living in Johannesburg, South Africa. He is the author of several poetry chapbooks and collections, such as Outside the Cave: Selected Poems. In 2009 he published Who was Sinclair Beiles?, a compilation of writings about the South African Beat poet, co-edited with Eva Kowalska. His short fiction ­collection Off-ramp was a finalist for the 2014 Nadine Gordimer Short Story Award.

Paul Warren is an artist and illustrator with an interest in surrealism and abstract art. He works in a variety of different mediums, including collage. Paul’s work has been published

by Dumpster Fire Press, The Odd Magazine, Word Vomit Zine, Vile Bird Journal and Sweat Drenched Press. He has online galleries at Deviant Art and Instagram. He lives in Daventry, England.

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This book is typeset in 9pt, Miller Display.