Gordon Ferris is a Dublin writer living in Donegal for the past thirty-six years. He has had poetry and short stories published in A New Ulster, Hidden Channel and The Galway Review. Most in A New Ulster.
Portrait of an introvert
You cut your steak into neat little pieces,
And eat your meal systematically one item at a time,
Meat first, potatoes next, moving them into neat piles,
And then on to the veg eaten with head bowed,
Never gazing across the table at your partner,
Everywhere but there,
Eyes darting from side to side,
To get a hint at how to behave.
With fingers brushing hair away
You glance at your inner mirror
Carried within you always
To see how you think you’re viewed by the world.
View from a train
Winter trees in a Barron field.
Skeletal
Like holocaust survivors’
standing in icy rain.
Some reaching arms to heaven
Some on their knees in Prayer
Summer just a memory now
Eternal dusk upon them.
Another of history’s winters.
In my child’s eye
In my child’s eye
The future withholds its flame
Behind her silent smile
All the input of the ages
Of others ideas
There way of seeing
Planted there, inhibiting free will
Inducing false desires.
In my child’s eye
The future withholds its flame
Hidden in dreams
Of lilac flowers
And lavender scent.
The reality is they lay in
Stinging nettles
And forgotten reverie.
In my child’s eyes
Dreams falling into place
The heart smiles
Its love and grace
He holds you
peers into your eyes
Utters the words
You want to hear
Into my child’s eyes
All the fantasies of tales told
Make transparent
The tricks that men play
How precious these words
How melt the heart that look.
But when without sincerity
The reality of it Burns.
The Galway Review 