Chosen

By Michael Lee

“Chosen” is an anthology of 76 of the most compelling poems the poet believes he has written to date, containing descriptive, philosophical and spiritual works from three collections, “Space-time walking in the age of the African diaspora”, “Sense of Essence” and “Stars and tears of many years”. The power of poetry lies in the blend of sound and suggestive meanings creating songs which stimulate the imagination and challenge thinking and perception. This selection includes the poet’s brief commentary on each poem, explaining the poetic effects he tried to achieve and sketching the autobiographical context in which they were originally written.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Michael Lee
• Release date: Mar 10, 2013

Book preview

Ark

Flowers are faces of the cosmos.

Mountains are architecture.

A blue sky is God’s smile.

Running water is the kiss of life.

Trees are art.

Sunshine is love.

Planets are plaster.

Our eyes are gates of eternity

and infinity broods over space.

For a philosopher, everything has a place.

For a philosopher with peace, everything’s in place.

My body is a temple

and a train for my journey of spirit.

An ark for catastrophes.

For the four forces of the universe never slumber.

The universe is portrayed in a series of poetic statements as living art, revealing a spiritual dimension of existence interwoven with our material world. The tone is assertive, offset by some soft imagery.

Dayland

The sun speaks its light over our hills.

It breathes day into the land I love,

dropping slow, carefully, into earth,

rising up the old azure,

its quiet heat life-giving,

glowing high above detailed existence:

sheep with wool bright white in its light,

lambs by hot nipples in mothered slumbers,

a rich energy soaking into their blood,

cud munched by cattle in contentment,

the maze of roads spreading everywhere

carrying people in endless motion

and choreographed change.

Clouds etched on the high air

challenge immense stillness.

Then jets, higher still,

soar through sound

old villagers cannot understand.

Then down and gone from the dayland too soon,

the greater is, the more missed.

The world becomes a stranger

arriving in a spell of uncertainty.

But in an unsure dusk

the sun simply recharges,

storing its relentless nuclear vitality

for another childlike day.

One of the first poems I wrote when I was a teenager, Dayland articulates my love of sunshine and how it drenches objects in lucid daylight. The strength of the poem lies in its physical descriptiveness. The power of the sun as a provider of life pulses and throbs in the lyrics. As it is read, a poem re-enacts the writer’s voice, transformed in the process by the reader’s inner voice into a duet of sounds and meanings, a co-produced silent song which aims to be sufficiently melodic to make for a satisfying imaginative experience.

Autumn tumult

Clouds from the sea

woven in the mystery of water

veil the Cape

secretive at the season’s turn

cherishing elegantly cool relief

in silvery shade

under its parasol.

The era of butterflies

breeding near shimmering dams

under a soaring sky

in drowsy long hot hours

(the insects sing about)

is over.

The universe is a magician’s hat

and his wand has been waved.

Wait: darker, deeper, colder, blacker, windier.

Not just the day is ending.

Wild hooves of winter sound over the horizon

of an unkissed land.

Then boom! bang!

People start scampering into their superstructures

clutching broken bits of black umbrella

all city lights flicker

like particles of moonlight

on a tormented sea

and a poet tosses his gift of sight

into darkness

turning to face its anarchy

and heaven gropes for breath

in the drowning of the sky.

After its passion, earth is soaked.

Its celibate, lonely ground,

parched in isolation,

has been consummated.

The lofty season of satiation

has disappeared into mists

of a fresh time.

In Africa where heat is great

water is like a miracle.

The cataclysm of first rains

has left an aftermath

wrapped up

in mists of moist air.

I walk up a grey street

transfixed in after-rain stillness,

it’s dripping,

autumn’s crucified colours

stuck to the ground.

Snails cross cold old stones

coming from lost homes

trailing extended grey tears,

searching for a new start.

Rain has deepened colours

and blackened altars

of moss-clad branches

arching over paths of leaves

into earth itself

near a river

breathless with freshness.

Cape Town, 2011

Changes of season are times of atmospheric transition when everything is charged with readiness, a heightened alertness. I’ve spent most of my life in Cape Town which has a passionate Mediterranean climate subject to abrupt shifts and largely unpredictable swings of weather. I tried to depict the Cape’s energetic Autumn in the poem, conveying its distinctive sights, sounds and moods.

Sands of Zanzibar

An azure ocean brushes over Zanzibar’s burning sands

where dragonflies flit at the island’s edges

riding on the day’s warm rhythm

as the sun dips down

distilling a turquoise sea

into glistening silver.

Rows of faded, grey dhous moored to a freed sea tilt together

in a breeze crackling in supple long coconut palms

lifting scents of spices and smells of cooking

from poor villages nestled

in time-fabled

forests.

Black gulls rest on boats and on backs of cattle

come to sleep on buoyant beaches

resonating in crystal air,

a bloodied sun

bursting molten on

the horizon.

On Zanzibar’s burning sands, Africa, Arabia and India kiss

as low tide draws long lines of fisherwomen

draped in saris and headscarves

to fetch fresh, free fish

to feed their families

in an anointed sunset.

Zanzibar, 2011

An exotic scene on one of Zanzibar’s northern beaches, lapped by the Indian Ocean, is described. The economic realities prevailing in this poor island community in East Africa are included but woven into a relationship with nature. A time-tested way of life in those parts, which hold a special affinity for me, is evoked.

Karoo cameo

Desert wakes and holds its breath for dawn.

Stars glimmer in a gloomy underworld dome.

Planet tilts, a little white lightens

a vague sphere of dust starlight still brightens.

Night hides behind a gnarled hill from the sun

rising to reign over an orange horizon.

God closes the page of stars; Venus