I come here today,
officially,
to inform you that...
(in case you haven’t already noticed)
humankind is currently
– in a process of gestation.

A team of researchers
will notify us,
precisely,
of the very moment
– the fertilisation occurred
and, consequently,
when we can,
collectively,
– watch the birth.

This is an atypical gestation,
as we know perfectly well
that it was not the fruit of love,
but of the terror
and tragedy
of thousands.

To be honest,
humankind forgot how to love
millennia ago
(two, to be precise)
when, against the cross,
collective hate was
revealed to Love.

Even worse, it insisted that
art would no longer
learn from love
with each evil eye,
every fake smile goodbye,
every sin cruel and sly
already transpired.

During this gestation
we have witnessed civil war,
hot or cold...
and we will witness
that which is coming,
although we had been promised
it would never come again.

Researchers speculate
on the appearance of the foetus that,
with chilling effort
and collective hate,
we are sure
one day will come.

Until then,
we made a secret pact:
the people will go blind
so as not to see the belly of the earth swell.

To find that inner peace
we must live as if
the evil were not there
already peeking out.

I’m not studious,
or fastidious,
I’m just curious...

but if someone were to ask me,
to my face, I would say that to abort this ‘revolution’
would mean choosing,
with eyes wide open,
to see the evil

choosing not to go along with it;
no longer contributing to this gestation,
seeing acts reprehensible
and even so choosing
to remain just as vulnerable.

I know how difficult it is
when you’ve felt the ground crack
while trying to calm down by
meditating on your back.

I’m not studious,
or fastidious,
I’m just curious...

But I think this land
will give birth to a war,
and, when this foetus is born,
we will have to endure
so, so much tragedy.

But here I am,
I still have my breath,
and I'll keep loving, eyes wide open
as humanity births

its own death.

Mariana Bonito

I have some lines inside my head
Which is when she lies down...
I have some nonsense with me which is when I realise that
I want to be a poet 

Without you who would I be?
Without time, you can't create
Without creating, you don’t try
Without trying I would get lost
Getting lost, it doesn’t pay

Without you who would I be?
The door was always open
The cage is our own creation
A lie!

It's we who believe that we need
The bars
The restraint 
I long to create I DESPAIR

I was poetry
I was hope
And in the end I really wanted
To be as much yours as I am hers

I really wanted...
To eat poetry
Unhurriedly, like on a see-saw
To try

Try time
Try hard
Toil hard
Hard regrets

So lost
But thinking of her
I really wanted
To dance with her inside this cage

But art calls
and that part of her
It overwhelms me
It makes me absent

Who feels?
Me, imprisoned in you, I would suffocate
Open the cage
Rock me
while you are prose
I want to be poetry

I want to be poetry!

With no goodbyes...

I wrote an open letter to my love
However short the time
And I can hardly ever say how I feel
I wrote about the labyrinth that imprisons me
And about the freedom I experience with you

Karen David e Marina Campanatti

Dark classroom
in the middle of the board a light
Dark classroom
in the middle of the board a light
Everything in depth
It reminds me of something
Of the school where I studied in Sertão da Paraíba
the light was the teacher who taught me to read
Of the school where I teach today
in a social housing estate in Lumiar
the light for those children is me
When they arrive downcast because
‘The police took my dad away, miss’
‘Give me a piggy back my mum never has time’
‘I don’t like family day’
‘I never have snacks my mum never has money to buy any’

Seeing the scarcity in the gaze of someone so young
So much to say
I, who think I'm here to teach
Realise that I’m here to learn

I find it distressing that a child pays the price for the mistakes of a system that promotes abundance while stabbing the back of the poor working father

I do not cast a light on them
I hear them
And they shine
I’m not their light
I hear them
And they shine
That’s the vanishing point: Education

Manu