Sharing with friends my poem “Longing” , just published in the August 2026 issue of the Indian Literary Journal “The Wise Owl”. Many thanks to the dear editor Dr. Rachna Singh.

https://www.thewiseowl.art/edilson-a-ferreira

“Deuteronomy 32-20 – Then He said,

I will hide My face from them,

I will see what their end will be;

For they are a perverse generation,

Sons in whom is no faithfulness”

God, with all due respect, and, too,

with great candor and loyalty, we come

seeking a dialogue, if such a thing is possible.

You are surely aware of the misdirection

that has defined our lives since the test

You have imposed upon us.

We have been lost, like that sheep strayed  

from the rest of the flock,

or like those old sailing ships

left to the mercy of the winds.

We have never had even that natural gift of birds,

who know from birth their journeys and returns

in each season of their lives. 

Unable to follow a safe and steady course,

whether on the paths of earth

or on those of the mind and soul. 

You know we cannot ever find the way back,

looking for the dawn of time and creation.  

We believe it is time You remind us, renewing 

some love and care we believe a Creator

is indebted to his creature. 

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

I do not recognize myself in certain night of sleep,

when I am visited by unexpected nightmares,

tragic, ill-fated visions, coming from who knows where,

planted by who knows whom.

I intend, or rather, I firmly classify them

as alien to me, to my person, and to my very being,

for I grant them no harbor, thought, or desire,

during any hour or minute I spend awake,

in a full and grateful life of endless rejoicing.

They are home invaders lacking the courage

to appear in the light of day.

I wish competence and success to the psychologists,

psychiatrists, and doctors who may be called upon

by my fellow ones who happen to be afflicted

by such dark, nocturnal occurrences.

I rise in the morning, say my daily prayers,

shake off body and soul, throw away the bad memory,

and exorcise it, let it to return to where it was created,

it was never welcome here.

Then, I dare to adopt the words transcribed

in Luke 23:34 of the New Testament:

“Father, forgive them, for they do not know

what they are doing”

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

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)