Gordon Ferris was born and raised in Finglas, a North West suburb of Dublin. In the early eighties, he moved to Donegal where he has lived ever since. He started writing in 2014 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 won the winter competition for his poem ‘The Silence’.  Gordon was awarded a Poetry Town Bursary by Irish Writers Centre in 2021.

Listen

Beneath my erupting display 
lays something quiet and aching  
 
behind these tired eyes  
hides an invisible dam  
 
holding back the tears-ready to erupt 
almost reaching to the top 
 
just won’t reach- overflow  
 
when asked to do  
what causes me distress  
 
I hide my displeasure  
behind a deceptive smile  
 
I am feeling pain. 
 
No, friend my grimace is internal 
Never shaped by faces about 
 
I don’t ignore you 
 
It’s a wall I build 
To hide from the world.

Things slipping away

I try to capture 
how silence rolls time 
along in slow seconds  
 
I try to capture  
the distance in your eyes  
the dimple beneath your thin lips 
 
I try to capture 
the way your hair 
twists and turns 
how it glistens  
even in shade 
how your smile fades 
then reignites 
when you realise it has. 
 
I try to capture 
how  long  fingers tap 
that nervous song 
 
and I try to capture 
that racing heart 
the tear that falls.