A Farm on the Paradise

My grandfather owned for life one farm,

where he and grandma raised the family,

raising also horned cattle and pigs and

rising to the mounts a coffee plantation.

They were married for entire life and so

their entire offspring.

They had thirteen sons and daughters,

my father the youngest, the thirteenth.

Thirteen the tribes had our Lord settled

over the Holy Land,

thirteen that afterwards had assembled

on the Last Supper.

The farm was known as the Water Mill.

The mill, an old one, producing corn meal

that grandma, in a brick kiln turned into

succulent cakes.

The water from a creek that fell down

since the hill to the mill wheels.

Then, going to the farm we always asked

what was the route to go to the Paradise,

so was named its hinterland.

The creek was named the Singing Creek.

I always thought that after crossing farm,

its waters flowed to one of the four rivers

that it was said relieved over the Paradise.

Remembrance smells to me as of old tales

like those we hear from the Holy Scripts.

Although I know bygones must be bygones,

I cannot prevent feel its scent this very day,

and still hear Singing Creek moving wheels

of an old, ancient, Water Mill.

 

Published in Creative Talents Unleashed (Featured Writer), September 11, 2016.

http://www.creativetalentsunleashed.com

Hope

Who will write my life?

Who will weigh my sins

and all the good, perhaps, I have had?

Who will pardon me for having existed

for so long, having changed so little?

Will my witnesses honor me and tell

all the love I have spread by the way?

May I take till my last home all the joy

I have been bathed in by birth,

that life’s disillusions have never dried.

I know there has been an angel

who has guided me, mainly

on some dark and strange nights.

Published in Red Wolf Journal, September 10, 2016.

http://www.redwolfjournal.wordpress.com

Published in Spirit Fire Review, April 2017.

http://www.spiritfirereview.com

Published in West Ward Quarterly, Fall 2023 issue

http://www.wwquarterly.com

Lost on Earth

Nothing is sadder to a soaring eagle,

used to flying above the highest ridges

and to defying the top of the volcanoes,

than to be obliged to walk on earth,

like men and those other animals

that live on the ground floor.

Crooked by the suns, rains and snows

of countless days, nights and seasons,

it is unable to raise that ultimate flight

to the last sleep on the rocky caves,

around its native country the skies.

 

Published in Red Wolf Journal, September 12, 2016.

http://www.redwolfjournal.wordpress.com

Inward Nobility

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.

It is this way we succeed to move

heavy and hard the 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

Published in Lothlorien Poetry Journal, May 29 2026

Dreaming a Home-Journey from Exile

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

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

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

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

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

Published in Feed the Holy, March 26, 2026

Published in Voices 2026

On Speaking Of Gravitation

       “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