My poem “Praise” has been published by the Literary Review “WestWard Quarterly”, in its spring 2023 printed issue, page 12. Many thanks to the dear editors Dr. Richard Leonard and Ms. Shirley Anne Leonard.

Yesterday a friend of mine was praising a local psychologist.

She is excellent, the best in her profession, he said.

Do you believe that a mother died and her husband,

aware of the approaching doom, had entrusted

such psychologist to prepare their dear daughter

for the terrible episode in question.

He did so because he knew the extreme

and unique sensitivity of the girl

he and his wife loved so much.

Then, it was noted that, at the funeral

that one day took place, the girl did so well,

receiving the guests, even smiling,

just as she was at a party.

When my family and I come to be harassed

for the misfortunes that will surely appear,

may we honor the human condition in which   

we have been endowed since ancient times.  

May we pour out all grief and anguish

we will then pass by.

And, if we feel that way,

let us pull out all our hair.

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

bicycling around only for pleasure,

   without protective helmets and gloves.

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 the 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 one forgiveness,

   respect the common oath once made,

   so engendering true and honest a love.   

No more

parents, sons and daughters going out together at night,

      carrying in common dreams, dramas and desires,

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

No more

growing, assembling and sharing rooms and lives around,

    indifferent to some strange customs of those

    who never knew to love and like themselves,

    our children becoming children of all of us.  

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

Sharing with friends my poems “Fears and Feelings”, “Silent Witnesses”, “Night”, Sweet Memories” and “Surprise at Dusk”, just published in the printed 2023 Winter issue of Westward Quarerly. Many thanks do the dear editors Dr. Richard Leonard and Ms. Shirley Anne Leonard, of Hamilton IL. They published me as the Featured Writer of that issue!

We walk in this borrowed world,

sharing loves and dislikes, coldness and caresses,

managing to create new hopes from disenchantment,

on cold nights knowing there will be a new tomorrow. 

We are not given to know the due date of the loan,

nor how much we will have to pay in principal and interest.

We ignore what return we will have on investment

that we have done.

They call us humans, travelling just like on a bus

with no scheduled stops and an unknown destination.

We were left with some laws, also many legends,

dictated by a Creator and ancient ancestors,  

who soon ignored us, hiding their faces,

as if repentant to create, raising, and strengthening us.

People say a promised land awaits us,

where milk and honey flow in abundance, and ashamed evil  

always hides and has no shelter.

It is part of the legends, but we consider it as a law,

we, a generation that amalgamates all the will and desire

of all the righteous who have preceded us.      

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

Sharing with friends my poem “My Love for Earth”, just published in the Fall 2022 print issue of “West Ward Quarterly”, page 27. Many thanks to the dear editor Dr. Richard Leonard.

My Love for Earth

I know there is a final day for my life on earth.

Perhaps I will win the prize of the righteous,

which is, after death, living in Paradise.

But, oh my God, I love so much this planet

which You granted to us from earliest ages!

I love every sunrise, every new day calling me  

to join forces and open new work fronts.

I love that scarlet red sunset that announces    

the early evening, enchanting and bewitching

haunted nights, always full of beautiful women,

loving sisters of our race, only found here,

nowhere else.

I learned to love, hard and harsh, the way

we were condemned to gain our bread,

since the disobedience of our ancestors.   

I think I will never be able to say goodbye

to this homeland, mine and of all of us.  

If I come to deserve an eternal life,

please, leave me here, even if you have to enchant me

as an elf or a fairy, forever feeling its brown ochre scent,   

among sinful, yet amorous brothers and sisters.

####

Small towns tell stories of their inhabitants,

those current ones and those

who already have said goodbye to this life.

Indeed, people prefer to be told of those 

who are no longer with us.  

Unlike the big cities, such stories are known for all

and never fall into oblivion.

As if they were plots of soap operas or television series,

always appear followers of this or that character,

who neither know nor suspect they have not died,

continuing to live and giving to the posterity some reason

to unfold uncertain and so ordinary their days.

People don’t forget the one who didn’t listen to parents,

brought his wife from stranger town

and produced three sons and countless betrayals;

also that family whose grandparents were dominant

in society, their sons lost tradition and money,

 grandchildren now live in poverty

and don’t know how to start again;  

that casino and its illusive machines and stripteases,

bad-looking owners and poker tables, boycotted

by the population and set out to look for another place;

the cemetery that needs to be deactivated

and make way for a new and more modern,

what they are putting off, so they continue to rest

and be seen near those they had loved in life.

They realize with sadness the current youth which loses

the meaning and strength of one life well lived,

the smile that was able to open hope and create

their fathers’ generation.

A generation that persecutes daily the happiness 

 in all its fullness we are in the right duty to achieve.

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

Sharing with friends my poem “The Seaman’s Death”, today, Oct 5 2022, published in the Canadian Literary Review “Ekphrastic Review”. Many thanks to the dear editor Lorette C. Luzajic. Read (and enjoy) it at: https://www.ekphrastic.net/

Sharing with friends the publication, today, Sep 13th 2022, of my five poems – “On War and Love”, “Chronology of the Pleasures”, “Desires”, “Gloomy Days” and “Rewriting Paradise”, in the Lothlorien Poetry Journal. Many thanks to the dear editor Strider Marcus Jones. Read (and enjoy) it at: https://lothlorienpoetryjournal.blogspot.com/2022/09/five-poems-by-edilson-afonso-ferreira.html

‘Yo no creo en brujas, pero que las hay, las hay’

(Galicia’s cruel saying)

There was a thief that a bad luck set him

on the way to your house;

a rapist that someone drove his madness’ eyes

and his insane desire to that dear friend of yours,

or, who knows, the weight of evil,

even to your beloved daughter.

A runaway truck that went around, didn’t catch you,

but wrecked a car with your friend’s sister,

also destroying her life and her family’s.

An irate driver who picked you up in traffic,

for, without any motive or reason, to overflow

all his hatred towards this world we live in.

That drug dealer who once saw at your son

a certain hopelessness of youth and guided him,

without pity or hesitation and with all wickedness,

on the sordid path of addiction.

That one you thought your friend but directed you,

with false truths and promise of great gains,  

for a business he never had money or courage to.

That stranger (maybe even a friend),

who, hidden from you and from due respect,

set eyes of malice and sin in your wife.

That sullen and unpredictable man, let loose on the streets,

instead of locked up in a bughouse, who can, on the outbreak

of the moment, just take your life.

So are some ways generated by witches you never knew, 

nor had never wished to know,

who, for free and pleasure of wrongdoing, also for envy,

collide daily with your brothers and sisters,

and are always looking for you too.

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