Author: Edilson Afonso Ferreira

Inward Nobility

/ Edilson Afonso Ferreira / Leave a comment

I cannot accept the sacred and solemn

as private of the Popes and Bishops,

Kings and Judges.

On the various facets of daily life,

in the streets, avenues and alleys,

houses and hovels, by

hugging a friend long not seen,

returning an unexpected smile,

giving a hand to the child and

listening to an elderly,

stopping to hear the birds

and the buzzing of the bees,

admiring the beauty of the horizons

and the flowers of the gardens, and,

for the exasperation of all the demons,

making love, not war;

there is genuine a solemnity,

also grandeur and nobility, as

at the cathedrals, palaces and courts.

And so we go easily moving

the heavy and hard wheels of time,

towards uncertain and unknown days.

Published in Red Wolf Journal, August 10, 2016.

http://www.redwolfjournal.wordpress.com

Published in Whispers, November 16, 2016

http://www.whispersinthewind333.blogspot.com

Published in The Lake, May 2018 issue

http://www.thelakepoetry.co.uk.

Published in Tree House Arts, July 24, 2019

http://www.treehousearts.me

Published in Feed the Holy, August 22,2025

http://www.feedthehol.blogspot.com

Dreaming a Home-Journey from Exile

/ Edilson Afonso Ferreira / Leave a comment

Sometimes one of us rises to the surface,

taking flight from the bottom of Dark Sea,

where, exiled, we have stayed for so long.

Defeated in old battles forgotten in  time,

sentenced in absentia by a merciless court,

clearing debts of incautious ancestors.

Our vision accustomed to the shadows,

our body surviving with minimal breath.

When the one who embarks on the climb

arrives on the shore and breathes full life,

he is abruptly sunk again by diligent guards,

those armed cherubim at Paradise Gate.

Has our penalty not yet lapsed?

Has not yet been paid the reparation of the beaten?

Could we endure light by the day of release?

Perhaps, then, with a pledge of the dark days of yore,

we may, sharing beloved Earth with the Almighty,

build a new light, friendly to human nature,

openhearted, unabrasive, and compassionate.

Published in The Bees are Dead, September 8, 2016.

http://www.thebeesaredead.com

Published in The Fat Damsel, Poems to Survive in, Aug 2017, issue 11, part 2

http://www.thefatdamsel.wordpress.com

Published in The Chamber Magazine, May 7 2021

Published in the 7th Circle Pyrite Nov 18, 2023

http://www.7thcirclepyrite.com

Published in Lothlorien Poetry Journal, March 10, 2024

http://www.lothlorienpoetryjournal.blogspot.com

http://www.thechambermagazine.com

Published in Voices 2025, May 2025

http://www.coldriverpress.com

Eating Pain

/ Edilson Afonso Ferreira / Leave a comment

For so long, I have been affected

by heavy lots of pain and sufferings,

as if a fee were due for being alive.

Sometimes I revolt and get nervous,

other times I resign myself to Destiny.

Last evening, having dinner at the table,

I could not avoid pouring abundant tears,

which washed my hands and my bread.

Then, I remembered the Last Supper, where

Our Lord had blessed the bread with wine,

leaving it as consecrated leavening to endure

coming days and times of beloved humanity.

I ate this bread, seasoned by salty hot tears,

with the joy of the righteous,

and, conscious of the miracle of the moment,

I also ate and put an end to the lack of faith.

First published in Whispers, August 02, 2016.

http://www.whispersinthewind333.blogspot.com

Published in Spirit Fire Review, August 27 2016.

http://www.spiritfirereview.com

Nominated by Spirit Fire Review for The Pushcart Prize 2016.

Dear Few Friends

/ Edilson Afonso Ferreira / Leave a comment

I have never seen myself,

and I am sure no one never will see,

as a friend of people used to easy laughs

and to those affected pats on the back.

I prefer austere, even stern people,

like the land I was born and grew up in.

Land of shrubs, narrow creeks and bare hills,

very brief a spring and summer, dry autumn

and then so endless and sleepy a winter.

Land unknown to purple-brown grapes,

bright persimmons and fat peaches,

where do not flow the milk and honey, just

some honest meagre sheaves by the harvest.

The song I sing is only heard by my equals,

some few ones,

who are not accustomed to false praise

and empty words,

but prompt effective and friendly deeds.

 

Published in The Provo Canyon Review, Fall 2016 issue.

http://www.provocanyonreview.net

Published in Indiana Voice Journal, May 2017 issue

http://www.indianavoicejournal.com

 

 

 

 

Nocturnal Strength

/ Edilson Afonso Ferreira / Leave a comment

Tonight, silent at the window of my hill’s cabin,

I see sparkling lights on the dark horizon,

evidence of the human presence.

Suddenly, I realize that, unlike sunny lights,

powerful and made by hidden an Almighty,

these ones are made and sent by companions,

fallible human comrades like anyone of us.

Really fallible, but full capable of, on solitary

and wild night, just as if by magic,

warm and encourage so poor a fellow’s soul.

Memorabilia

/ Edilson Afonso Ferreira / Leave a comment

Suddenly a grain of sand invades an oyster,

peacefully lying in the depths of the ocean,

unhappy a road accident.

Then, to protect itself from irritation,

the oyster quickly covers the uninvited visitor with layers

and layers of nacre, a mineral from which is fashioned

its internal shell.

The grain of sand gains a fine coat, which produces

iridescent and stunning a pearl.

Some accidents like this permeate our lives

on unexpected days and by unforeseen intruders.

Perhaps, similarly, we have made our pearls:

–memorable statues, symphonies and sonnets–

First published in Indiana Voice Journal, August 2016 issue.

http://www.indianavoicejournal.com

Published in Algebra of Owls, September 11, 2016.

http://www.algebraofowls.com

Published in Free Lit Magazine, March 2018, The Power Issue.

http://www.freelitmagazine.com

Published in Rudderless Mariner Poetry, on May 20th, 2022

http://www.rudderlessmarinerpoetry.com

Published in West Ward Quarterly, Spring 2025 printed issue

http://www.wwquarterly.com

Memorabilia by Edilson Afonso Ferreira

On Speaking Of Gravitation

/ Edilson Afonso Ferreira / Leave a comment

       “I’m Nobody! Who are you?”

       Poem by Emily Dickinson

I’m not nobody, like Dickinson was.

I know that I have a name, by which

many friends call me, having also

ready a road I’m always wandering by.

So few friends had called on her and

she didn’t need roads to gain the world,

nor knew Amherst was naught,

gravitating around all of her.

Published in Off The Coast, Printed Summer 2016 issue.

http://www.off-the-coast.com

Published in The Lake, July 2021

http://www.thelakepoetry.co.uk

Old Summers

/ Edilson Afonso Ferreira / Leave a comment

By the very first days of summers of my youth,

I always heard, every year, the song of a bird.

Never had I seen it, solely hearing its sound.

It was a pheasant cuckoo hammering two whistles,

that all of us, by no error, so listened:

summer comes!  summer comes!  

Like a live version of the clock’s cuckoo, it warned,

to the most unwary ones,

that had begun the most desired and expected season.

Its chant is lost and our days will never be the same

without that hammering dear beat.

 

Published in Indiana Voice Journal, August 2016 issue.

http://www.indianavoicejournal.com

Published in Highland Park Poetry, Summer 2017 issue.

http://www.highlandparkpoetry.org.

Published in West Ward Quarterly, Summer 2017 printed issue.

http://www.wwquarterly.com

 

 

Pilgrims from the East

/ Edilson Afonso Ferreira / Leave a comment

Sometime, somewhere in the East Lands,

there was a spot relieved by four rivers,

right place to settle shadowed a garden.

A traveling Potentate loved the scenery,

took possession of it, there building

magnificent a manor house.

Having not a hermit’s heart and His will

for creation unsatisfied,

and applying unsuspected powers,

He created, to Him and His peers’ likeness,

the beginning of a new nation, which he named

the humans.

Love and the desire to create, the bequest

we were awarded from our Lord

has lead us to populate and stretch out

the once Garden of Eden.

 

Published in Red Wolf Journal, June 06, 2016.

http://www.redwolfjournal.wordpress.com

A Brave New man

/ Edilson Afonso Ferreira / Leave a comment

From immemorial times I feel a dust

always hunting me wherever I go.

It blows softly and lightly, furtively

involving and deluding me.

It is a peculiar dust, that has in mind

not my body but my soul.

Created by the power of my enemies

and my disillusions, it works to calcify

the framework of my entire being.

But by night, at home and asleep,

you have all the right not to believe me,

invisible angels pour a cleansing rain

and by dawn it is a new and fresh man

who faces so old-fashioned one world.

First published in the July 2016 issue of The Basil O’Flaherty.

http://www.thebasiloflaherty.weebly.com

Published in Spirit Fire Review, August 27 2016.

http://www.spiritfirereview.com