Three Poems by Gordon Ferris

 

Beauty’s Kiss

 

Your

Cherry, Cherry

Cherubic lips

 

I was touched

by your

fingertips

 

in scented oils

we both were dipped

your touch

 

without

ever having touched

hands hovering  just above the skin

 

sensuous

not physical

like being caressed by a ghost

 

you touched my ear

neck hair stands erect

shivers  slide down my spine

 

like hearing a song

or remembering a poem

and how it made you feel

 

witnessing

Heaven in a flower

and how it  made you feel

 

the knowledge and beauty in art

something other-worldly

seeming   dreamlike

 

 

 

Safe Fantasy

 

She opens her black eyes

she sighs and says she talks to angels

she sits at the back of the church

talks of lustful sinners

who    are only lovers

while secretly

lusting after the young men

she belittles with her turned-up nose

 

in her cosy chats with the priest

she furtively glances at his crotch

afraid and hoping at the same time

that he does notice and

responds in a passionate embrace

 

a safe fantasy for her to have.

 

 

Winter comes

 

I see through the horizontal blind

leaves blowing on the wind

some fall to the ground

 

birds scavenge among them for food

a squirrel looks around confused

and scampers up a tree

 

a woman struggles hurriedly

pushing her crying baby in a buggy

telling the baby to

 

“hush, hush now child,

your dinner will be ready in no time

so just you hush, hush now baby”

 

a slight drizzle begins to fall

gradually turning into a torrent

the woman curses under her breath

 

the child giggles uncontrollably

throwing one of the groceries out of the buggy

the mother exhausted, picks the bread up

 

and lovingly kisses the child on the forehead.

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,  Live Encounters Poetry 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 Poetry Ireland. He also had his first book published in January past by Impspired, a short story collection called Echoes. His first poetry collection Mirror Looking Out: has been accepted by Impspired and will be published in October.