Gordon Ferris is a sixty-two old year Dublin writer living in Ballyshannon in Co Donegal for the past thirty-six years. He is a member of the Dublin Writers Forum and has had many poems and short stories published in A New Ulster, Hidden Channel and The Galway Review. 

Drinking all night on the beach. 

Clouds cover the mountains 
like a bed sheet 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 birth of day
our eyes slowly opening.

Bus stop.

Feet shuffling from side to side
Waiting, listening and watching
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 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.

Noise.

I like being on my own,
thinking freely
letting the voices enter,
their words leaving the mouth
in random abandon
coming together
through the ear in unison,
amazingly making sense.
 
The never-ending cycle of
subtle vitriol from egos with
no beginning, middle, or end
an endless circle of words
rotating back to the start
an endless spiral of sounds,
circling and confusing,
exploding and defusing. 
 
Overheating but still cooling.
Round and round they go
catching us in their glare,
look of sincerity, as if they really care.
Sitting uncomfortably
Numb but overheating
afraid to take the coat off
don't want to be noticed
 
Imagining all the others 
secretly watching from 
the corner of their eye
passing judgement
even when you look 
and notice they’re not looking
you don't believe what you see
they turn away now
They think I'm nosy
‘they’re whispering now’
can't make out what they’re saying
but I bet it's about me
bet they’re texting their friends 
about the old man in the goatskin coat
the goat, the old man killed, 
Skinned and cured himself