Poems of a Wanderer is out now!

My book with some of the poems I wrote is already available at the Kindle store!

Go on! Take a look! Have a read and spread the world!

I hope you enjoy it!

http://www.amazon.com.br/Poems-Wanderer-English-Bernardo-Ferrara-ebook/dp/B015UZVP1W/ref=sr_1_3?ie=UTF8&qid=1443388059&sr=8-3&keywords=Poems+of+a+Wanderer

Coming Soon!!!

A selection of 15 poems is currently under revision, and will be soon published for Kindle!

These include some of the ones you can read here, as well as others published only for the book. The book is called "Poems of a Wanderer" as most of them - if not all of them - were written while I was traveling or living abroad.

I hope you all enjoy it!

Remember that you don't have to have a Kindle to buy the book! You can download the Kindle app for your phone or PC for free and read it.

Kindle book coming soon!

It has been quite a while since I last posted something here.
So many things have happened in my life that I wrote very little and didn't feel like posting anything thing in here.
Recently, though, a new spark lit my creative fire again!
I just put together a collection of poems I wrote - some were not even published here - and I am preparing them to be published at Kindle! Exciting, right?
So pretty soon, I will put up a link in here for you guys to check it out!

In the mean time, I'll leave you guys with a link for a short story I published last month for Kindle as well. It is in Portuguese, though, and it was part of the contest "Brasil em Prosa" (Brazil in Prose). The name of this short short story - as it has only almost 6,000 characters - is Joana and it tells the story of a young man remembering a conversation with his grandmother.

Check it out and let me know what you think!

http://www.amazon.com/Joana-Portuguese-Bernardo-Ferrara-ebook/dp/B012J1R4WY/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1440471055&sr=8-1&keywords=Joana+Bernardo+Ferrara

The Lion and the Fish - Part III

Against eddies and whirlpools,

swiftly he swims,

running from no one but himself,

searching for something long longed for.

Pacing fast and brave without a pant,

making all in his way run,

he knows what was then is lost,

but roars for something new.

At the end of the river, there the ocean is,

with its mermaids, nymphs and songs,

luring everyone who there dares to explore,

towards it he goes.

The savannah is silent and bare,

without a drop of rain since they last met,

what seemed like a tragedy, is now bliss;

for he had found another one.

And all the tears he had shed,

almost made this river sea,

but now he knows what he must do -

away from him, this land and life, he'll be.

By dawn they meet, and in loving roar

lighting and thunders break,

bringing life to where death roamed.

At the delta he now freely swims,

no longer tied to the love

he once begged for.

Now he stands, as a strong warrior,

atop of a tree he sees,

where they once were,

and now with his new one he is.

And as a merman,

this brother of Glaucus,

heads north,

answering a long and distant call.

The Lion and the Fish - Part II

And howling and roaring

we wonder why he is.

Sitting aside and crying

for him who now dead is.

We question why he first jumped,

and the reasons for what he did.

Maybe it was impossible to be stopped -

the pain that in his heart hid.

The guilt and sorrow he felt

of seeing him there, little by little, choke,

as his heart, slowly beating, broke.

And the Lion, there he was,

not crying for his love,

but roaring for how free, he now was.

Bauru, 10/10/10

The Lion and the Fish - Part I

Running, free and wild

Through fields of unknown matter

Through thoughts of no one’s mind

Through space and time

Swimming, fast and swift

Across rivers of hope

Across dreams and illusions

Across reality and imagination

O, what he would give to run with him

To feel the green grass upon his fins

To smell the dry air above

To be one more time with him

And what he would give to dive as well

To wet his mane deep in the river

To move with the waves

To break free from this dry land

Dreams and hopes of both in love

Fears and desperations of lovers apart

Desires of days longing for more

Cries of pain and sorrow

It was all too much for one

It was all too far

It was all too sad

His heart was tight and beating slow

The tide was slow and calm

The river was quiet and peaceful

Back and forth he practiced

Calculating; analyzing

Lying in the grass nice and easy

Feeling the breeze upon his fur

Sighing for the moments together spent

Long gone ago

In a moment he heard

A splash across the banks

He stood tall and strong

Afraid of what could that be

His eyes gazed through the fields

The grass being squished

Water - splattered

His heart slowly breaking

He jumped on the grass

Hoping for a miracle to come

Wishing to breathe that air

He ran to save his love

Roaring sadly and filled with grief

Flipping in hopelessness chance to live

Was it all too soon?

Was he too late?

It was the distance that killed them

It was the distance that brought them together

It was the distance that separated them

Softly and gently, now and then

Roses and Cats

The house I grew up in smelled of roses. My mom would buy them every day at the street market close by, "what a pretty sight they are," she'd say. To my mind they were only alright. I was never fond of them actually. I guess it was because I once had a cat that loved eating them and my mom made me get rid of him. Poor Frisky, never saw it coming. I didn't kill him or anything, if that's what you're thinking, but we were best buds. He waited for me to come back from school every day sitting on the window facing the street. But one day, my dad and I took him to a friend's farm and left him there. Some days later, I got a phone call saying that he tried to run away and was found dead on the road. A car or something must have run him over. Poor Frisky.

I went to College in the West Coast, which for my mom was my way of putting a knife through her heart. She wanted me to go to school in Michigan, but I was tired of that miserable Winter time. I moved to chase the Sun and Arizona was the place to be.

I remember getting off the plane and seeing that dessert landscape and thinking to myself, "I bet I won't smell roses anymore," which was a funny thing to think of.

I saved all the money I got working part-time during the Summers while I was in High School and got myself a nice one-bedroom unit in a complex. It had a pool and a small fitness studio and the neighbors seemed to be nice.

After a year or so, I decided to get myself a new cat, after all, now there were no roses to worry about. Frisky, the second, as I named him, was this beautiful black cat. My mom said that he would only bring me bad luck, but I don't believe in this kind of things. Little did I know. The cat seemed to be possessed! He ruined a whole couch in less than a month. One evening I arrived home and I saw my walls all scratched, "there goes my deposit," I murmured. The other day my boyfriend spent the night and when we woke up, one of his shoes was completely unwearable. He was nothing like Frisky, the first.

One day my boyfriend gave me 12 dozes roses, one for each month we were together and I immediately asked him, "have you forgotten about your shoe and Frisky?" He just laughed. When I got home, Frisky saw the roses and slowly crept towards them and I could already see me sweeping endless rose petals from the floor, but he simply smelled them. When I woke up, there he was, sleeping around them. I guess they made him calmer, and since that day, I always have some around the house; it's a matter of "homeland security."

____

This short story was written as part of a class I'm taking at the Writer's Program at UCLA.