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Edwin Olu Bestman Poem
I am an African child
Born on the fertile soil of Africa
Skin rich in minerals
Raised by a mother who never allowed me to feel sorry for myself
I am an African child
Deeply rooted in the African dream
Bright and thoughtful
A treasure characterized by witnesses of many clouds
I am an African child
Though I am black and beautiful
I refuse to be judged by my skin color
Gift me a book and I'll tell the name of those hidden stars in the sky
I am an African child
It's obvious they hate me for no reasons
But I am made of the moon
And shine bright like a diamond
I am an African child
Representing tears and blood
Sorrows and unending pains
But I am optimistic about tomorrow
I am an African child
Excited to be a citizen of Africa
But fake smiles knocking on my door
Cause my leaders paint my dreams with cookpot and charcoal
I am an African child
Not ordinary but a charming vessel
Teach me discipline day and night
And avoid hiding my faults
I am an African child
Clothed with beaded accessories
Fetched water from rivers and streams
For my culture is my heritage
I am an African child
Not an American or European
Teach me to stay black and not white
Cause there's no continent I feel more African than Africa
I am an African child
A child whose father dances Africanly at the village square
Flutes and drums are played during festival
I am one of the sons and daughters of my fatherland
Copyright © Edwin Olu Bestman | Year Posted 2020
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Edwin Olu Bestman Poem
He was birthed into a country
A home cemented with several crises;
Food, water, money, electricity, road,
health and education
He lives in a small house
A house where electricity frowns day
and night,
And drinking water is clothed with
millions of diseases
At every corner of the street
He begs to ease the pains of his stomach
Crawling bitterly on his knees while his friends dine at Diana restaurant
He makes love with sorrows
Romances sadness until she births frustration
And his forehead speaks messages
of pains and abject poverty
He's lost in a scattered field
Cause his beautiful lips are dried
Not even a drop of a holy communion
has touched his tongue
Now, he is thrown between rusty bars
To survive or to get drowned
For his mind is captured with fears
Copyright © Edwin Olu Bestman | Year Posted 2020
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Edwin Olu Bestman Poem
I lost all my favorite
people to death/
that is why broken smiles sleep
on face/
that is why i am always lonely in a
room full of people
I lost all my favorite
people to death/
mom was the first missing
angel/
whose face was never pictured
by me
Dad became our next mother/
whose life painted joy in our
fragile hearts/
But took a tour with death in
2017
I saw darkness roaming our
backyard/
cries broke in through the
window pane/
we fell off like an iroko tree
I lost all my favorite
people to death/
aunt too became a victim/
they said she had suffered from
African sign
Beautiful souls having an affair
with the red earth/
tearing me apart like a broken
pavement/
how I wish to plant kisses on
their foreheads
Copyright © Edwin Olu Bestman | Year Posted 2020
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Edwin Olu Bestman Poem
'Home'
This place she calls home
They preach about women's rights
Yet, they're fed with rape twice a day
While sexual harassment has found a
place to dwell
This place she calls home
Activists placards read 'Say No To Rape'
Sadly, at every corner of the streets
A girl child has been beaten, tortured
and rape
This place she calls home
Love is not a religion
Instead of protecting her rights
They're desiringly protecting their salary
Mama has fallen to the floor
Little kebbeh has been touched wrongly
Yet, the government sleeps on the case
Cause Hon. X has climbed the stairs
This place she calls home
Rape has now become a culture
Officials subscribe to evil politics
Allowing young minds to become victims
of the society
This place she calls home
At the high table of decisions-making
Her rights are loosely compromised
She now bears witness of sexual violence
She craves for quality education
Good home, happy family and children
Yet, they serve her with their
Devouring her dreams and aspiration
Listen society!
The broken walls of her heart is covered
with pains and frustration
She needs justice; justice for peace
I think the magical poet has written
Copyright © Edwin Olu Bestman | Year Posted 2020
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Edwin Olu Bestman Poem
Verily, I say unto you
Sexual harassment is still loitering on our streets
Rape graduated from hungry and now made it greedy
Penetrating lives bitterly making them victims of the society
The pictures of our loved ones are still beautifying the newspapers
Their crying voices still linger in our ears
But our government is filled with deaf and dumb
Verily, I say unto you
Sexual assault is the most brilliant religion
Followers are dancing joyfully to the beat of their bass drums
Celebrating as if they have won an achievement
Their bodies are crying blood and water
Funeral homes are tired of holding their corpses
Sadly, the government behaves as if she has fallen into coma
The news of another rape girl is still crawling through our TVs
I am just tired of painting flashbacks
But rape keeps knocking on my door
Activists' voices get lost with the wind
The grave has silently paid bride prices
Cause rape is still hanging around
Verily, I say unto you
A girl's body is not a commodity.
Stop! Stop right there
Her mini skirt is not an excuse for rape
Copyright © Edwin Olu Bestman | Year Posted 2020
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Edwin Olu Bestman Poem
for abunic sheriff – a friend who battled sickle cell.
yesterday the bones in my friend’s body wrote me a note of grief saying that they were tired of living.
even the smile my friend wore on the hospital bed grew withered & his voice became the new peace burning my eyes.
with the oxygen to his nose helping him to revive. his skin produced sorrows as if his body was asking for too much from sickle cell.
this is a tragedy that counts me too like the civil war our fathers fought. my friend tried with Allah on his lips for survival.
he was a muslim. calm like prophet mohammed. how i wish this poem could be a call for resurrection from the dead to feel his palms again.
only God knows how i feel in this poem. of how many days i watched my friend buried himself in pains on the hard ground. of how sometimes he bent on his knees to heal.
in this poem,
everything is mourning for my friend who grew halfway into life. yesterday he took his last breath & journeyed somewhere to find rest.
Copyright © Edwin Olu Bestman | Year Posted 2023
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Edwin Olu Bestman Poem
What is the formula of love?
Is it written on a woman's lip
Or hidden within a man's thought cause
Some relationships are like coordinate and plane geometries
While others are advance differential calculus, it is full of mystery and clouded by major and minor characters
Some lovers are like "X" and "Y",
Blend together thoroughly in a simultaneous equation,
Deservingly giving birth to a positive or a negative number
Some words behave like fraction
Gently taking part of a whole in someone's life
But it is either proper, improper, like, unlike, or complex
Some kisses appear like trigonometry
Determining an unknown angle or side
With the ideas of Pythagoras
Some relationships are arithmetic
Addition means to add
Subtraction means to take away,
Division to divide and multiplication to times
Though life is a library of many experiences,
But how can "Love" be defined,
Is it the compilation of feelings through written notes or words
Copyright © Edwin Olu Bestman | Year Posted 2020
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Edwin Olu Bestman Poem
for so long,
this country sold its birth rights to the things that lived in the past
history says - Liberia offered us bullets in 1989
& came back in 2022 to steal the glory off our skins
history is right - how can a boy like me still pretend to be alive
when there are grieves growing into bombs in my mother's home
for boys and girls wanting to refresh their bodies
in this country - breathing alone cannot make you to survive the tortures
they tell our people to go back to the soil to sow their seeds
yet, in the middle of the night/ they come as weeds to destroy our destinies
everyone knows education is important
but how important is education in this country?
when men and women of high esteem hide in pretense
& obtain degrees from bogus universities
this country of ours is a prostitute
a ing prostitute - taking many unwanted es to dream lands faraway
i promise to never be gentle in this poem
for this country is nothing less than an irony
we have pleaded with them to show us how to fish for ourselves
but our people who sit in high offices fishing at the expense of high illiteracy
how about boys who are sodomized & girls whose features are playgrounds for rapists?
this country of ours is a troubled bridge
causing multiple damages to passengers who lay low in taxis and buses
and sometimes when i do survive
i go into my room and write my feelings into poems to remember my story
Copyright © Edwin Olu Bestman | Year Posted 2023
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Edwin Olu Bestman Poem
Who told you that black
is a logo of slaves
And white is a logo of masters
A book is not judged by its color
But racism convinces us that one
color should be free
And another should be caged
Who told you that white is
beautiful
And black is extremely ridiculous
When we were created in God's image
Not one less
But racism teaches that black or white
is not a brotherman
Who told you that white shirts are better than black
Or black shirts are better than white
For racism has schooled our membranes
Sadly, we live to hate each other bitterly
Not knowing that God is black and
also white
Who told you that black is inferior
And white is superior
Every color is unique
Not one less
None is greater than the other
But racism is still teaching doctrines
of separation
A white against a black
It is God against God
Why should separate our colors
Neither white nor black is greater
We are all the same
United we stand, divided we fall
My skin color is not me
My character is me
My intellect is me
My action is me
But my color is not me
Copyright © Edwin Olu Bestman | Year Posted 2020
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Edwin Olu Bestman Poem
If beauty was a person, it would certainly be a Liberian girl
Behind those dark clouds, she is an angel yet to be seen
Her smooth natural skin resembles the red earth
Her lip is a place where sleeping dogs lie to appease themselves
Her eyes are made of rays of colorful lights that restore hope
Her beautiful earrings take a triangular shape indicating A=1/2bh
Her ears are sensitive to uphold to the ups and downs of life
Her short and pretty nose is admired by every suitor
Hair nicely positioned at all edges serving different looks
Hands are tempting to touch just for a moment
She wears a smile of imperfections striving towards perfection
For if beauty was a person, it would certainly be a Liberian girl
Copyright © Edwin Olu Bestman | Year Posted 2019
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