Sharing my poem “Stumbling, Pitfalls, and Spells” today, July 10th, 2026, published in the Canadian Literary Journal “IExile”. Many thanks to the dear editors.

Stumbling, Pitfalls, and Spells

Sharing my poem “A Forgotten Christ” with friends, today, July 10th, 2026, published in the Canadian Literary Journal “IExile”. Many thanks to the dear editors.

A Forgotten Christ

Sharing my poem “Fears, Feelings, and Desires”, today, June 24th, 2026, published in the American Literary Journal “Poem Alone”. Many thanks to the dear editor, Colin Dardis.

https://poemalone.blogspot.com/2026/06/edilson-afonso-ferreira-fears-feelings.html

I dare to write this new version of my old text,

renewing the promise that the pure passions

that ignited me along the journey I traveled, 

have not be forgotten.

Paths that witnessed a troubled life, some joys

and good vibes, but many suffering days,

that often made me fearful, never stagnant,

never discouraged.

Life that the Creator breathed into me, through

the breaths of two souls who met and became one,

giving birth to that love that shines and surpasses,

reaching close to the sacred and the sacrosanct.

Life that I labored hard and harsh, not letting

the sacred flame granted to me be extinguished,

which I pass on, justifying and warming

the generations to come.

It is my will and desire we will forever sanctifying

that breath of life granted to us in that divine week

of creation, that holy sixth day of the human birth,

also sanctify that seventh day of the Sabbath.

This poem and all others at this blog, authored by Edilson Afonso Ferreira ©

Secrets from a Current Theatrical Season   

There is a world waiting for its time to happen.

It waits, attentive to the counterpoint marker,

its turn to enter the scene.

Eyes open, anonymous among the spectators,

an envoy, an emissary, and a plenipotentiary  

of the author of the play, so that each speech,

each act, mainly unkind and wicked ones,

do not become lost.

The author, at home and even more anonymous,

did not want to witness the event, surely regretful

and disconsolate of the rawness at times

he could not avoid in the unfolding of the plot.

And so different worlds overlap on the stage,  

at its due and exact time.

The author, yet aware he portrayed real life,

in his forced retreat, 

his decaffeinated coffee and non-alcoholic beer,

a cloistered five o’clock tea,  

a sad and lonely heart.

(Written on March 28th, 2025)

Fallen into Oblivion

No more guys and girls happily driving

   open-air convertible cars on weekends, 

   free of seat belts tethering their bodies,

   sweet winds swaying, fighting, and playing 

   their loose hairs.

No more

children walking on the streets to school,

   carrying notebooks in their arms,

   not in backpacks, not on buses.

No more

young boys playing marbles in holes

   they had dug on vacant lots near home,

   their mates flying kites heavens above.  

No more

family sitting on the front porch after dinner,

   sharing the latest neighborhood news.

No more

walking in the fields by night,

  under tender and puissant moonlight. 

No more

people greeting each other and sending good vibes,

   even if they were unknown.   

No more

fresh milk bottles delivered home by the morning,

   but milk boxes at immense supermarkets,

   with sleepless cameras furtively watching over us.

No more

letters, no business letters, no love letters,

   only emails to be lost in cyberspace.

No more

couples who face the difficulties of everyday life,

   profess mutual and sincere forgiveness,

   respect the common oath once made,

   so engendering true and honest love. 

No more

parents, sons, and daughters going out together at night,

   carrying in common dreams, dramas, and desires,

   like a pack of wolves that have not learned to segregate.

No more

growing, assembling, and sharing rooms and lives,

   indifferent to some strange customs of those

   who never knew to love and like themselves,

   our children becoming children of all of us.

(Written on November 19th, 2016)

Rebirth

I was asleep in a dream full of nightmares

and ate scraps of hope, milled in the impersonal

and mechanical time machine.

Scraps that fed me to be no more than a dry tree,  

struggling to break free and unravel from roots 

that held me to the ground.

I prevailed over fate that once deceived me,

and now walk and will spread my life around. 

I wish to distemper, hallucinate, and extrapolate,

horrifying who has enchanted and eluded me

in that dark and deaf land, that was not mine.

I will go, doubtlessly a renewed man, in search

not of a drop of water but of one rain that rains

thunder and lightning, maybe even the deluge

that has baptized our era.

I will reap fruits that, blessed by my hands

and hard a toil,  

will surely make me more and more strong.

I will make love to my wife in sheets of soft Chinese silk,

and we will be asleep in a bed of fragrant Lebanon woods.

Not that I deserve more than Moses,

who only had a glimpse of the Promised Land,

but, of this new one, that I am to conquer,

I will take secure and lasting possession.

(Written on May 11th, 2015)

Surprise at Dusk   

About one month or two ago, on walking,   

as we are accustomed to almost every day,

my wife and I,   

when passing by a well-known bridge,

we noticed, not without some sorrow,

that a family was living under it.

At a corner they had cleaned on the riverbank,

they were living their day-to-day life.   

We were filled with sadness, certainly  

they were homeless, or at least, temporarily,

having as a roof that lower part of the bridge.

Yesterday, again walking, we perceived 

that there was something different,

a few more people, in addition to the family

we were used to seeing.

A couple of bonfires lit the better the area,

they seemed to feel very comfortable,

laughing and happy; we even heard

something like a clink of glasses.

My wife was surprised, did not understand,

but suddenly, I did, and told her:

there is no doubt, they are having guests today

and are having fun.

Then, we became aware that, for a while,

we have not enjoyed much of this pleasure.

(Written on November 19,2016)

Night

When night comes and sleep does not appear,

I ride through unsuspected worlds,

have memories even from days I did not live,  

by sure dreams I did not realize.

The yearning is loose; I have to fill the void,

so that I arrive in full to another day waiting for me,

new challenges, new fights.

The new day will be powerful and pugnacious,

unlike me, one day older and not being able to hide

on the face and soul, the marks of misfortune and sorrow,

unrequited loves, dislikes and mismatches.

I will show that I did not renounce the human inheritance,

and, along with dear fellow ones I lived, loved and suffered,

having watered the road even with sweat and tears.

Always sure that we will reach, at the end of the journey,

the promised land, and, unlike Moses,

who just had a glimpse, we will take secure possession.

Then, this day, dancing and partying,

we will throw to the skies sound and honest a laughter.

(Written on January 20, 2019)

Pride

“Genesis 1-27 – So God created mankind in his own image,

                             in the image of God, he created them;

                             male and female he created them”

This is how our history has been told in your book,

in the words of your saints and prophets,

a matter we must never doubt of.  

Forgive us for questioning, but where

the power and mastery we should display,

which we have been looking for so long?   

Where the wisdom and clearness,

where an eternal life or, at least, someone like  

that of Methuselah, who lived for nine hundred

and sixty-nine years?

We lived by your side so little, and quickly  

You banished us, locking the Paradise Gate,

there placing those cherubim brandishing

their deathly flaming swords.

Perhaps, in lieu of immortality, we developed

greatest and warmest a love, for and from    

each one of us, what You could ever dream of.

Also, may You believe,

having forgotten your primeval purpose,

boldly, unconsciously, perhaps,    

so we should prefer to continue living.

(Written July 15, 2017)