Five Poems by Edilson Afonso Ferreira

 

We are All Fiction

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, never has ceased to love.

Let us strive, who knows, with one 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.

(Unpublished)

 

Comrades on the Road

I believe there is a conspiracy ongoing

involving all of us.

I don’t know when or where it began,

nor who initiated it.

They occult from me their talks

just I approach one of them.

It seems to me a stealthy fellowship,

a strange one, saints and demons,

angels and warlocks, even goblins.

They congregate to rule all people,

fighting for our souls, one by one.

Someone has been told it is a caste

that rids humanity from wrecking   

and leaves it alive on the road,

leavening us before ultimate battle.

 

(First published in Subterranean Blue, June 2015 issue)

Translated into French as “Camarades sur la Route” by the author and Rebecca Banks and published in Poésie Bleu Subterrain at the same date.

 

 

Silent witnesses

It is common our disputes about this and that.

Really, almost daily, we are at opposite sides.

Friends say we are not well-settled a couple,

and so misjudgment, I know, hurts us equally.

In the deeps of night, standing awake in bed,

I look at you asleep and feel all friends’ error.

Who would bear testimony of us, I ask myself.

Walls and roofs surely know our inmost life

but they do not speak, are invalid witnesses.

I ask them if just to me would they say of us. 

They say of our confronts, furies, rough words

and revilements but also remember our hugs

and hot kisses. Also, remember having heard  

some words like it is cold out, dear, wear your

coat or don’t be late, darling, some little things

only beloved ones are capable to.

They say we are at hard and arduous a battle,  

on pursuing, although scarce, a bit of true love. 

They also say to keep the route and fear nothing.

Tiles and bricks, indeed, they are, but perceive

unlike my best friends, the very plot of the play.

First published in TWJ Magazine, October 2014 

 

 

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 by 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 adventures 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, 

make a new light; friendly to human nature,

openhearted, unabrasive and compassionate.

 

First published in The Bees are Dead, September 8, 2016.

 

 

Pride

 

“Genesis 1-27 – So God created mankind in his own image,

                             in the image of God he created them;

                             male and female he created them”

 

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 cherubins 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.

Perhaps, may You believe,

having forgotten your primeval purpose,

boldly, unconsciously,  

so we should prefer continue living.

(First published in Culture Cult Magazine, issue 13 Monsoon 2019)

Edilson Afonso Ferreira, 80 years, is a Brazilian poet who writes in English rather than in Portuguese. Widely published in international Literary Journals, he began writing at age 67, after his retirement from a bank.  Since then, he counts 190 poems published, in 300 different publications. Has been nominated for the Pushcart Prize and his first Poetry Collection – Lonely Sailor – was launched in London in 2018. His second, - Joie de Vivre – has been launched in April 2022. He is always updating his works at www.edilsonmeloferreira.com.