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Live Encounters Poetry & Writing May 2023
The Path, poems by Gordon Ferris
The Path
When life takes aim
trying to make us pure
when you always
think your
pushing boundaries
sometimes you push too far and
you find yourself
falling into a black pit
hopelessly trying to
find the path to home
Into the darkness, going home
into darkness
spirits of all that ever
walked the earth
wandering
watching
not able to take part
seeing their progeny
stepping into their future
a future they
can take no part in
can’t even give them a nudge
or drop a helpful hint
on wings some float
like mutant moms
forgetting who their kin are
spectres floating from
one plain to another
not knowing where
they really belong
sometimes we sense
or get a whiff
of the familiar
on the other side
can they get a whiff
of those to whom they belong
or are they just
set adrift
on an ocean
of new beginnings
I write the sound of
my mothers long gone shuffling feet
and I draw
the staring neighbours
as I revisit my decaying past on
my old and dyeing street
© Gordon Ferris
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 Poetry Ireland. He also had his first book published in January past by Impspired, a short story collection called Echoes.