Gordon Ferris was born and raised in Finglas, a northwest suburb in Dublin. In the early eighties, he moved to Donegal where he has lived for most of the time to now the present day, He started writing in 2014/15 and has had many short stories and poems in publications including Hidden Channel, A New Ulster, The Galway Review, Impspired Magazine, and Lothlorien Poetry Journal. He has also won prizes in the summer 2020 HITA creative writing competition for his poem Mother, and also won the winter competition for his poem The Silence. He was awarded a Poetry Town Bursary by Irish Writers Centre in the winter of 2021.

Drinking all night on the beach

Clouds cover the mountains  
like bedsheets on naked flesh. 
 
Singers  swaying  
dancers swinging 
onlookers, sitting silently in awe 
pent up energy 
ready to explode 
the hesitant wave 
arm reluctantly rising.  
 
At night colours from our world
depart to paint the canopy of the universe
returning later
watched over by the morning sun
heralding the birth of day
our eyes slowly opening.

Bus stop

Feet shuffling from side to side 
Waiting, listening, and watching 
The sign says it’s due in one minute 
The sign has said that for the last five 
Two women dolled up to the nines 
Powdered faces reeking of cheap perfume 
Shivering must be freezing 
“That Reiky is a load of old bollocks” 
“It helps me, so I don’t give a bollocks.” 
Ad for a local politician,  
Vote Leo, yur only man. 
A penis is drawn on his forehead 
A baby crying under shopping in a pram 
The mother lights another cigarette 
A drunk man looks at his watch 
And anxiously in the direction, the bus will come.