Human Generations

Shame

/ Edilson Afonso Ferreira / Leave a comment

I am ashamed to see security guards at my Bank,

armored vehicles used to transport money

and Police officers on the streets patrolling.

Supermarket loss-prevention professionals

and their cameras sleeplessly watching us.

They say that this is intrinsic to Capitalism,

a modus-vivendi we inherited from our forefathers.

I am not used to economic laws and marketing.

I am simply a poet, perhaps, or certainly, a minor one,

who wants to manifest that our brothers and sisters,

no-poet-people, would have, by now, already changed

this way we have been chained to.

First published in Boston Poetry Magazine, August 15, 2014.

Published in The Stare’s Nest, January 18, 2015.

Published in Dead Snakes, January 29, 2016.

http://www.bostonpoetry.wordpress.com

http://www.thestaresnest.com

http://www.deadsnakes.blogspot.com

Money, As Viewed By A Poet

/ Edilson Afonso Ferreira / Leave a comment

I suffer from cold fits when I hear of money.

Does a poet need money? Does he understand it?

They ask if I want to sell my house, my car,

how many dollars do I want for them.

I rarely remember wheter they are mine,

or how much had I paid for them, if so.

They do not know how impertinent they are.

Should I value my things, my labor, my time,

or, by chance, my life?

People cannot understand poet’s measures.

Is it possible they do not know that they are

human happiness,

a plain smile

and permanent beauty’s ravishment?

By Edilson Afonso Ferreira.

Published in Right Hand Pointing, issue 78. September 2014

http://www.righthandpointing.net

Published in Every Day Poems, November 27, 2015

http://www.everywritersresource.com/poemeveryday/

Published in Indiana Voice Journal, May 2016 issue.

http://www.indianavoicejournal.com

Published in The Basil O’Flaherty, July 2016 issue

http://www.thebasiloflaherty.weebly.com

The Writing of our Book

/ Edilson Afonso Ferreira / Leave a comment

Who knows how fate works in our lives?

Fate – eternal tyrant – rules over all of us.

Since we were unborn and not conceived

and our parents unknown one to the other.

Paths to walk by, persons to love and to hate.

Arrivals and departures, praises and failures.

Faith and despair; rejoicing; tears and fears.

Every time, every day or hour, week by week,

from dawn to evening and noon to moon,

conscious or unconscious of its guidance,

we go pursuing threads around the labyrinth.

Would be a warlock, by early times, in old caves,

who spelt the words that compose our book?

Or a saint who threw the letters from the stars?

First published in Cyclamens and Swords, August 2011 issue.

http://www.cyclamensandswords.com

Published in Dead Snakes, January 29, 2016.

http://www.deadsnakes.blogspot.com

Published in Voices 2025, May 2025

http://www.coldriverpress.com

Macário’s Story

/ Edilson Afonso Ferreira / Leave a comment

He was a blacksmith in our small town,

lively and smart a man, a good comrade.

He liked bicycling in shorts and shirtless,

only in very frosty Sunday winter nights,

snaking by the crowd’s comings and goings,

as challenging people and bad weather.

Mainly women always said – what a man!

Once, we asked what became of Macário.

He suffered from pneumonia,

taken to the hospital and died.