Sharing with friends my five poems “Dreaming of a New World”; “My Family, Wars and Love”; “Days of Fury”; “Stumbles, Ambushes, and Spells”, “Fallen into Oblivion”, today published in the Literaary Review “Fevers of the Mind”. Many thank to the dear editor David L. O’Nan.

A Poetry Showcase from Brazilian Poet Edilson Afonso Ferreira

We are jealous of our lives, our desires,

and accomplishments, always gilding and beautifying 

our performance, in order to become well seen,

well referenced, in our journey through this world.

Being careful, we act to reserve at least one page

in the book to be written of the history

of the time we have lived.

We strive, we sacrifice, to set the tone

of a certain and plausible reality, that could impact

on some we choose to love, among those  

in the inevitable transmutations of our daily lives.  

Let us be aware, however, that our world

in truth is not as real as it appears.

We have been, each one of us, acting our fiction,

that we have chosen since we became a being.

As one philosopher once wrote, this world

nothing more has been but our Creator’s dream,    

where He sowed us as His creatures, whom,

in truth, has never ceased to love.

Let us strive, who knows, with a superhuman force,

to rise beyond the dream, arriving, at least

a little closer to one Reality, which we dare to perceive,

but never able to grasp with our own hands.

Published in West Ward Quarterly, Winter 2024

http://www.wwquarterly.com

Published in Lothlorien Poetry Journal, March 10 2024

http://www.lothlorienpoetryjournal.blogspot.com

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

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.

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 ©