Outside the cave: selected poems by Gary Cummiskey

Outside the cave: selected poems by Gary Cummiskey, is still available directly from the publisher. Outside the cave comprises work from 1990 to 2022, selected and introduced by renowned South African poet Kobus Moolman.

160 pages.

A sample of some poems from the volume is as follows:

Colours

Downtown, the colours are gone.

The people are gone.

There are no supermarkets,

no cars, no traffic lights,

no beggars.

There is only the darkness.

 

I’m searching for you

but can’t remember your name.

Immortal

Last night, feeling suicidal,

I leapt over the balcony

and landed flat on my back

in the garden below.

Lying there, I looked up

at the sky and saw how empty

it was, apart from a few

insignificant stars.

Now I know I am immortal.

What’s on today’s menu?

A cold-storage plant filled with naked underwear

A pocketful of razors

 

A pecan-nut pie found on a sewage heap

A half-burned steak gone rotten with global atrocities

 

A fish stunned into silence

 

A DVD played backwards on the neck of an astrologer

A cherry farm riddled with last year’s crack cocaine

A loaf of bread rejected by a slaughtered seal

A scrambled egg fried on the remains of Lorca

A can of baked beans farting its way to the White House

 

A frigate of onions marked HIV-positive

A bowl of soup seasoned with sinister suspects

A lasagne sold out in the name of petty politics

A pizza topped with the succulent massacre of penguins

 

A half-burned steak gone rotten with global atrocities

A fish stunned into silence

 

Wheelbarrow

 

He pushes the wheelbarrow

through the gardens, 7am.

He has to be rid of the

patients’ nightmares, that’s

what they pay him for

– so lay off, don’t bug him,

don’t run the poor man down.

 

Published by Dye Hard Press. The cost is R180, plus courier is R100 -- so R280 altogether, for South Africa only. To order please email cummiskeyg@gmail.com.