i.m. Michael Hurrell, 1984-2008
Here, listen to this, you said, eager to press play
on Tiesto’s mix for strings – stringing us along
to Barber’s Adagio, a funeral anthem adulterated
by sonic synth, raising us from the humdrum
for all of six minutes, thirty-two seconds,
lost in the club-culture remix
of your benefit-funded Ibiza.
You were a gladiator in a self-styled movie,
pulse fluttering like a moth
beneath destiny’s paperweight – your truth
trapped in a one-bedroom failsafe – freed
for a moment in a techno smokescreen.
Michael, how could you know you were
rousing a requiem – summoning a trance
to lure you to a place in time – more infinite
than your twenty-four years.
Michael, how could you know those strings
would echo like a strobe light through eternity
– resurrect the spirit of a lost boy.
Mary E. Ringland is a therapeutic counsellor from Larne, County Antrim. Her poems have appeared in The Storms Journal, New Isles Press, The Morecambe Poetry Festival Anthology, Live Encounters, and The Bangor Literary Journal. Mary recently completed her MA in Creative Writing at the Open University.