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‘How To Write A Dirge for Liberia’

By: Edwin Olu Bestman

Begin with its North that is covered in crystal tears,
Lips that dip, dwell and drown into silence,
With a heart that sleeps in a scattered field

Find a route to the West,
The west that births darkness admist the day,
Sweeps the smile that lights our way,
And writes stories on bitter leaves

Begin with the East,
Where we live beneath the grass,
Where our stomachs sing songs of sorrow,
And poverty is our next door neighbor

Sink down to the South,
Where the streets are wrapped with bits of rubbish,
Where the homeless are broken and stuck between rusty iron bars

Do not cry,
If these lines gonna create an ocean of unending tears,
Let’s begin with the government drawn in couplet

‘They are the thieves brandishing their pockets
With the fruits of her womb’

‘Tell how it employs cockroaches and rats,
To stir the affairs of her reserved’

Lastly, end with either an exclamatory or period,
Throw your sadness away,
And roll up your sleeve for another life

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Edwin Olu Bestman is an award winning poet, philanthropist and a civil engineer. He writes from his home in Monrovia. He goes by the pen name Magical Poet.

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