Seeker Magazine

Michelle McGrane

Temptation | Seed Pod | Drumming The Night
Before The Storm | Identity

I was born in Mutare, Zimbabwe, in August 1974 and moved to Malawi in 1975 where my family lived until I was fourteen. Moved to Pietermaritzburg, South Africa, at the end of 1988, where I finished my schooling and went to Business College. I am currently working as Executive Secretary to Director of Insolvencies Department in a legal firm, and would like to become a full-time freelance writer eventually.

My poetry has published in "Carapace", "Botsotso", "Sun Belly Press", "Pagan Africa", "Fidelities" and "Newsart" (South African magazines and poetry journals) and on "Electric Acorn" (Irish e-zine), "The Quarterly Muse" (United Kingdom, magazine) and "Comrades" (United Kingdom/States e-zine) within the space of the last year.

I enjoy painting when I have the time although poetry is my primary creative medium, and I am currently working on my first anthology entitled "Fireflies & Blazing Stars."

Temptation
good-side facing, shiny red,
the half-devoured apple is
offered casually,

an afterthought.

the Garden stirs,
uneasy witness,
abused, abandoned,

lonely, overgrown jungle.

history repeats itself,
time again.

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Seed Pod
A ripe pod
bursts open in
fullness, gossamer
crowned fecundity
come to culmination.
Upgrowing, whirling,
scattering, soaring,
heaven-kissing
helicopters
dance on high
to the wind,
Upswept sublimity
taken on wings to the
waiting world.

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Drumming The Night
they drum
the night,
tiny fluid
waterburst
explosions,
throwing themselves
kamikaze-style
against
black slate tiled
rooftops
that gleam
wet & impervious
in the wan moonlight.

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Before The Storm
shadows lengthen
in nightfall's descent
casting greying gloom
along parched, dusty
drought-stained,
neighbourhood walk-ways.

drowsy heat-drugged dogs
bark half-heartedly,
sprawled in concrete courtyards
near frugally-filled waterbowls,
calling to one another mournfully
across sombre dusklight.

trees stand
in neat-rowed bravery,
drooping branches outstretched
awaiting benediction,
bending ballerinas
in the final act,

deep in illicit conversation,
thirsty leaves
whisper conspiracy theories
amongst themselves
of dry times fallen
upon the land.

nostrils seek out, inhaling eagerly
elemental electric-charged
summer storm smell as
cool wind kisses salty sweat-dried skin
bringing tidings of
long-awaited relief.

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Identity
Mother, Mother --
tossing & turning
in self-appointed
isolation, your
single bed,
this room of
your own,
padding the house,
an insomniac spectre,

reaching out
in the dark
for a voice on the line,
a telephone Messiah,
to quiet
or deny
your violent,
inner tumult,

you, with your
handful of happy pills
& maternal guilt
might recall,
I too have seen
my face
in that mirror &
become stronger
for its
reflection.

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(Copyright 2001 - All Rights Reserved by Michelle McGrane - No reproduction without express permission from the author)

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Letter to the Author:
Michelle McGrane at michellem@stowells.com