Captivating
In the first light of the morning sun and late in the evening, mesmerising luminosity
with features that simply amaze and astonish in equal measure, as if sculpted
from ancient sacred marble by Michelangelo or gilded by Gian Lorenzo Bernini
from the purest gold imaginable.
If ever there ever was a case to freeze the great clock’s hands, well here it is
to preserve a rare beauty, that has escaped from mythology or a European folktale or fable.
A calm resilient kindness to match this utter transcendence in human form.
A silken mane of hair akin to fleece with the power to heal all of mankind at once
was sent to us.
Clarity with perspicacity, raising the intellectual level of the conversation
dynamic and familiar
with a God-given facility with language delivered with flair, style and insight.
Resolute, perceptive, wise, cutting through to the core of it all with grace, style and ease
getting to the heart of the matter with diplomacy and tact.
An obviously extraordinary scope of reading, erudite, empathetic, wearing an invisible halo
all for a better world.
Other-worldly, ethereal, with an aura of quiet activism and a commitment to social justice
perhaps following the ancient blue-prints for living from our ancestors.
A maestro of the craft of choosing words so carefully, changing the world
from within the cage, a word at a time with heart and humour.
A master of the power of words, a custodian of our languages
with a safe pair of hands, always in control, with compelling magnetism.
Speaking from the universal mouth with the voice of a guardian angel
a voice of reason, a profound and awe-inspiring presence
we are willingly locked in her kind, worldly, sophisticated female gaze.
A deep understanding of every intersection imaginable in modern narratives
Always exuding eloquent joy, a true embodiment of feminism at its finest.
A true, authentic, discerning master of language
stimulating the impetus for cultural sea-change with great self-awareness.
Emerging with the sunrise and sunset, embodying its light, positivity, twilight and darkness
sending us into the sunlight and the night, exuding positive luminous energy
for the day and darkness ahead of all of us.
Seared the boiling holes from the sun, the bone-structure wrapped around
bright-blue and chestnut-brown eyes, in a tight knot.
The gilded frames bettered with time and barely ageing in the raw rays of the moonshine.
Walking in the pouring rain remembering their images, etched and emblazoned
into the deepest part of the memory in the brightest blue and autumnal chestnut-brown eyes.
Wonderful role-models of quiet power and sophistication
the reflection of the stars at the bottom of a well
would not do justice to such cellular miracles
so natural as to appear orchestrated by the creator
in the eyes of the morning and the night-time
where there can only be magic
beyond the day and the night
the light and the dark.
Until It Is Never, Really Over
With some control of the steering-wheel lost
of the miracle of trans-computer connectedness through gaps in babies’ teeth.
Never part of a union, or for very long and had problems
scenarios depicting visions from beneath the bowels of hell itself or worse again
broken doll-heads strewn around, along with cracked white eggshells
featuring hairline fractures.
Looking out at a ‘hanging garden’ and old ceramic-flowerpots filled with overgrown weeds
forced unjustified shame down below conscious awareness, during day to day routines.
The horror of persisting images, forever in existence, forever
expending lost energies into self-destructive behaviours, losing years and memories.
Took place for at least ten years near holiday homes, it said, in the papers one morning.
Undoing layers of self-blame before admission to someone or anyone.
Tried an old man of what he never saw as wrong, remembered through the window
of a nickel-flask of the sixties, seventies and eighties.
Victims often lost to chaos, addiction and mental illness
losing their twenties, thirties or more, depending on how it all goes.
Insurmountable terrors unseen by those around them, to navigate through a whole human life
after having been torn apart by a sweating dog, unseen in the daylight.
That anyone would descend into such depths of human depravity
to disperse those grainy-patterns of the worst kind of psychological brain-breaking bullets
delivered to a life of no real peace afterwards, images of murder would be shot down quicker
a trillion-fold out there now for the twisted pleasure of the bogey-men.
Stained clothes never outgrown, creating a living-dead inertia
mummified alive, wrapped in tight bandages, rinsed in plaster of Paris in the darkness
to dry and harden in the daylight breeze, the beating-heart forced into a closed canopic-jar.
An extraordinary price to pay in innocence, for a high crime often unpunished, by secrecy
no justice can ever be commensurate to the absolute heinousness inflicted on the afflicted
over and over and over, until it is never really over, while still breathing, so heavily.
About the Author
Gavin Bourke grew up in the suburb of Tallaght in West Dublin. Married to Annemarie living in County Meath, he holds a Bachelor of Arts Degree in English, Human Development and Irish from Dublin City University, a Master of Arts Degree in Modern Drama Studies from University College Dublin and a Higher Diploma in Information Studies from University College Dublin. His work broadly covers the natural and socially constructed worlds, phenomenology, psychology, sociology, philosophy, economics, medicine, politics, social justice, history, existentialism, absurdism, technology, inclusivity, inequality, human life, ethics, commerce and science, in English and to a lesser extent in the Irish Language. Gavin has won international competitions for both book-length manuscripts and individual poems and is published widely internationally.
