Edmund Kwame Botchway

Edmund Kwame Botchway, born 27^th April, 1991 in Ghana is a Poet, Speaker, (Social) Entrepreneur, Educator and New Business Development Advisor. Edmund holds a B.A Hons. in Geography and Resource Development from the University of Ghana and works currently as a Teaching/Research Assistant at the University. He is also actively involved in Eco-tourism development.

Growing up in different environments and being in touch with diverse people has borne out of him a unique versatility and understanding of all people; he passionately says “I have been there”. His poetry revolves around love, society, poverty and suffering. His philosophy is as he always says “What Ever A Man Is, Was Nursed In The Womb Of Society As Such The Ultimate Goal Of A Man Should Be To Impact Society With All That He Is”

Edmund Kwame Botchway imagines big things and dreams of bigger things maybe because he is a poet, and loves all that he does.

WHO SAID THE POOR ARE NOT HAPPY?

The pot-

 has not been licked

 that cook our happiness.

Even when charred dreams we collect,

we paused not to question fate.

Drawn out contours of misery

recipes in the broken pot is no mystery

implicit simplicity.

Misconstrued sickness as wretch

We are sick of happiness

Our gaiety we hang as chandeliers in open roofs

Laughter-

of children bounded by space

rise like incense, above rubbles of grounded dreams.

Dancing to melodies of the song bird

Cockroaches scaring away ghosts of our bleak future

In harmony with nature

Even the mice parts us company-

and regret not its departure

What a thing!  To lack and be alone

It’s not true the poor are not happy

Lifted faces unashamed

You and I are just the same, insane

Running in opposites, then

converge at our source, dust.

We are born, live, we die.

Macabre tales of primordial Sin

Imminent revolutions of cultural definitions

Tell me not who I am

You know not, you cannot tell

I will tell my own tales, to weave the coat I shall wear

Who said the poor are not happy?

You know not, you cannot tell

I am even not poor.

                          © 2013 Kwame Botchway

JADED

Sometimes he remembered,

Sometimes he did not,

But when he missed you,

 he knew this feelings are true.

T’was a Sunday afternoon vacant of humour

So he wanted to write till his pen cried no more

To bring to eternal life things that are no more

Humming along when all else drifted in two and fours

The cloud across the skies in pairs

The birds across his eyes in pairs

Even the falling leaves in pairs

So slowly he drowned in despair, in despair.

Endlessly he stared and counted his gray hair

Then he remembered her last words;

‘For You, life will never be fair!’

His heart was taken in fear,

and he burst into tear, tears

sipping through his jaded beard

He cried! ‘Life is not Fair!!

© 2013 Kwame Botchway

SKYSCRAPERS

…and so the day lingered on

but before then it was the bus

and now it’s all these thoughts I dare not speak

but before then it was me, on this bus,

staring into eternity all these skyscrapers.

Oh! The window was tainted by the harmattan

t’was not skyscrapers I saw… I saw

children who scraped screens to unblur my vision, I saw

women who raced the cars in futile races..

I saw many things but not what all saw

and now I see ghosts of children unborn.

I hear voices…

not voices, I meant silent voices in my head

that kept me turning in my bed

So I pray I sleep on this bus… then ghosts will I see no more

Voices will I hear no more.. and

This will I write no more.

© 2013 Kwame Botchway