Pride

/ Edilson Afonso Ferreira / Leave a comment

“So God created mankind in his own image,

in the image of God he created them;

male and female he created them” – Genesis 1-27.

 

This is how our history has been told in your book,

in the words of your saints and prophets,

a matter we must never doubt of.

Forgive us for questioning, but where

the power and mastery we should display,

which we have been looking for so long?

Where the wisdom and clearness,

where an eternal life or, at least, someone like

that of Methuselah, who lived for nine hundred

and sixty-nine years?

We lived by your side so little, and quickly

you banished us, locking the Paradise Gate,

there placing those cherubims brandishing

their deathly flaming swords.

Perhaps, in lieu of immortality, we developed

greatest and warmest a love, for and from

each one of us, what you could ever dream of.

Also, may you believe,

having forgotten your primeval purpose,

boldly, unconsciously, perhaps,

so we should prefer to continue living.

Published in Culture Cult Magazine, issue 13 – Monsoon 2019.

http://www.culturecult.co.in

Published in Fevers of the Mind, Sep 18 2023

http://www.feversofthemind.com

Published in Lothlorien Poetry Journal, March 10, 2024

http://www.lothlorienpoetryjournal.blogspot.com

Published in Feed the Holy, April 18, 2025

http://www.feedthehol.blogspot.com

Published in Voices 2025, May 2025

http://www.coldriverpress.com

Published in The Galway Review, Aug 13, 2025

http://www.thegalwayreview.com

Published in 7th circle Pyrite, Feb 21, 2026

Who will read?

/ Edilson Afonso Ferreira / Leave a comment

Plowing the fields and producing wheat, oats and beans;

rising sheep, cows and pigs;

raising and spreading children and instilling in them

those dreams we were not able to turn into reality.

Throwing rails, roads, bridges and ports,

cities, skyscrapers, churches and cathedrals,

always leaving fences and borders;

creating worlds only ours,

incapable and fearful to co-habit the one

that has been given to us in full.

Boasting and toasting in life’s daily feast,

trying to write our history which has begun

in that sixth day of the divine journey of creation.

They who will read our history will know it was lived

with such a love and endearment, though absent from

the power and glory of its creator.

 

Published in the March 2018 issue of Snapdragon A Journal of Art and Healing. .

http://www.snapdragonjournal.com

Rescued to Life

/ Edilson Afonso Ferreira / Leave a comment

Nights distant in time, so long it seemed they were eternal,

endlessly spreading their darkness,

unaware that it was scheduled, at dawn,

a new day, renewed hope, to redeem us

from such a cruel fate.

Ghosts, diseases, afflictions, with valid and stamped passports,

like sinister nocturnal animals loosed adrift,

swarmed from house to house and soul to soul,

making villainous and sordid harvests for soulless lords.

Our parents and ancestors surpassed so hopeless nights,

and today, free and forgotten of horrendous nightmares,

we dance and sing,

boasting and toasting in life’s feast,

throwing to the skies sound and honest a laughter.

Published in Purple Fire Publications, Oct. 13, 2018.

http://www.purplefirepublications.ca

Published in Tree House Arts, Feb 20, 2019

http://www.treehousearts.me

Praise

/ Edilson Afonso Ferreira / Leave a comment

In cathedrals and churches,

abbeys and convents;

in the small chapels on the top of the mountains;

in pilgrimages and spiritual retreats

and in the rooms of those who are secluded in house

and cannot leave anymore;

in the sound of the wind that cradles and pushes us

and in the rain that washes and makes us grow;

even in the mute silence of the hidden seed in the womb of earth,

that knows and expects its time to join our world;

everything and everyone congregate at the sacred Te Deum

in honor and glory to the Spirit of our common Creator.

Salvific chant we are never tired of,

truth that redeems and gives us strength

on the journey to Canaan, the promised land

where pours the milk and honey,

and evil never finds shelter.

Published in Spirit Fire Review, September 2018 issue.

http://www.spiritfirereview.com

The Missed Deadline

/ Edilson Afonso Ferreira / Leave a comment

The magazine my wife reads has launched,

for Mother’s Month, a writing contest.

A married woman should report works

and troubles on raising her children,

showing the drudgery of everyday life.

To the winner, an unpriced diamond ring.

A brilliant writer, surely confident in her pen

and in her extreme love for our three sons,

soon she started writing.

Then, there was a lot of school homework,

the babysitter left our service

and our youngest child has become ill.

Today, work still incomplete,

she missed the contest deadline.

I’m rightly concerned one diamond ring

will wrongly adorn some mother’s hand.

 

Published in Spirit Fire Review, April 2018 issue

http://www.spiritfirereview.com

 

On Brothers, Journeys and Faith

/ Edilson Afonso Ferreira / Leave a comment

Beyond that corner,

beyond my neighborhood,

even beyond my town and roads abroad,

perhaps even above these clouds

and distant worlds,

there are people I’ll never know about.

They do not feel how much I love them,

for I am sure we’re all brothers,

conceived on that primeval wellspring,

long, long ago, on that saint sixth day

of the divine journey of creation.

Since then, by meager strengths

and unlimited a faith,

we have been colonizing our dear earth,

on our own journey pursuing,

day after day, the promised new land.

The biblical one, where honey and milk flow,

which, I believe, we’ll encounter not so far

from the horizon of upcoming a happy day.

Published in Tree House Arts, April 11, 2018.

http://www.treehousearts.me

Published in Spirit Fire Review, June 2019

http://www.spiritfirereview.com

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

I had a Dream

/ Edilson Afonso Ferreira / Leave a comment

I dreamed that there were no borders or barriers

and everyone was coming and going all over.

There were no countries with complicated names,

nor other languages difficult to pronounce.

There were no Latin or Jewish quarters,

consulates, embassies, or customs.

We were dealing with John, Joseph, and Peter,

having been forgotten the old records

at those big notary books of names like

Tudors, Stuarts, Windsors,

Whites, Browns, and Smiths.

Priests, pastors, rabbis and teachers,

together they worshiped the same God,

the same saints and prophets,

praising our common history

and sowing hope in the hereafter.

Restaurants, schools, and hospitals,

all of them were open to anyone,

as well the parties, weddings, and baptisms

and all other pleasures of the day-to-day.

Published in Creative Talents Unleashed, Featured Writer, June 16, 2018.

http://www.creativetalentsunleashed.com.

Published in Voices 2025, May 2025

http://www.coldriverpress.com

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

Forever Human Generations

/ Edilson Afonso Ferreira / Leave a comment

We founded churches, schools, hospitals,

we created priests, teachers and physicians;

some of us we acclaimed kings and judges,

some others, beggars and prisoners.

We care for our children instilling in them

those dreams we were not able to fulfill.

We have changed our course many times,

both on the road and in our minds,

so little different from those primitive hordes,

turning to the wind like a ship of old sailors.

We have never had even that natural gift of birds,

who know from birth their journeys and returns

in each season of their lives.

Saints and sinners, side by side, we write our history,

which, some day, will be read, and they will know that,

if we have never  lacked wit and sapience,

it has never lacked a plenty of love.

A love full of disappointments, but blended with the joy

of alone colonizing a planet given to unknown ancestors,

which, despite life’s scars, has been always handed

to welcome ever new generations.

Published in Indiana Voice Journal, March-April 2018 issue.

http://www.indianavoicejournal.com

And the Wind Came

/ Edilson Afonso Ferreira / Leave a comment

Showing that it did not come for love,

did not know how to be gentle and affectionate.

It came for lust and voluptuousness, not the breath

of a lover, but the madness of the impassioned.

It did not learn to be breeze, was born this way,

snorting and showing its claws,

without notice or warning.

Knocking at the doors and all of a sudden

forcing the windows,

like a river which comes out of its bed

and floods the lands around.

It did not waste time making swirls or pranks;

its shot was direct and accurate, without pause or rest,

like a shameless male, clothes off and in open air,

covering, without modesty or prudence,

his chosen female.

It has warned not to scrimp its desire,

not turning into a hurricane.

Published in Tree House Arts, Jan 31, 2018

http://www.treehousearts.me

Published in The Chamber Magazine , May 7 2021

http://www.thechambermagazine.com

Published in PPP Ezine, May 2021

http://www.poetrypoeticspleasureezine.wordpress.com

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

Kind of Love

/ Edilson Afonso Ferreira / Leave a comment

There was once a summer,

lost in the folds of time,

where, no one knows,

has existed happiness.

It has appeared only for us,

nobody else’s.

Never affected by daily hardships,

always shielded from world’s rust,

it has remained in our hearts

and we know it will not disappear,

even by the collapse of our bodies.

Nothing can end such a love,

born in hot winds, baptized

in fresh rain and crowned,

as blessed by the skies,

by stunning and mystical lightning.

Published in Free Lit Magazine, January 23, 2018, The Bildungsroman issue.

http://www.freelitmagazine.com