My Van Heusen Shirt

My Van Heusen shirt cost me fifty cents,
A dollar ninety-nine to clean and scent
After the hundredth clean I had a two
Hundred dollar shirt after one year too!
Its worth in cash my economist says
Depreciates come each passing day that plays.

Long live this name who's got the cash and fame
With my hopes for any all left with shame
And a higher end shirt with a mark that pricks
And picks the pocket with such lovely tricks
My mind would let grasp these higher end goods
That empty our purses and carry loots!

Promises to Keep: A Christmas Poem**

Two years ago the newly governor-elect,
told party delegates at a first conference
how he promised his widowed mother
he would be honest and never take bribes.

“She said: ‘Now, that you won, son,
whatever you do, be honest’.”
“And I told her: ‘Oh, of course Mom,
I’ll be honest because that’s how you raised me’.

“She said: ‘That’s good, son, I know you will.
Let me ask you another question.’
I said, ‘What’s that?’
‘Promise me, son, you will never take bribes’.

“I said: ‘Of course I’ll never take bribes,
not only would that be dishonest
it would be illegal,
and I would never do anything to dishonor
the memory of my father’***.”

“She said: ‘That’s good, son,
I’m sure you won’t,
but I just want to remind you
because that’s how mothers are’.
I said: ‘I know’.

“She said: “Let me ask you another question.’
I said: ‘What’s that?’
She said: ‘Do you think you can
get Aunt Daisy’s son-in-law a job?’
I said: ‘I dunno,
I’ll try’.”

Two days ago,
or two weeks
to 'a very presidential' Christmas,
our duly elected governor
was led abroad from his home
by the FBI...


Achirri Ishmael
December 13, 2008.

EPILOGUE

"I imagine myself in the New World
with Christopher Columbus
for the first time,"

(he mused the following year,
recalling the events at Roy-au-mont)

"A symphony of sounds,
of colors,
of smells,
of desires,
and of hopes.

Then I imagine myself
on the moon
with the astronauts,

and all I see
is gray,
dust,
and barren rocks,

and the earth I long for

is far
out of reach..."


Achirri Ishmael
7 November, 2009

Loops of Memory*

I had forgotten to tell him
about their presence
until it occurred to me.

"Would you love to join the discussion
with Chomsky, Piaget,
and the others?" I asked him.

"Yes," he said kindly,
"Just tell me when".

That was during the conference
at Abbaye de Roy-au-mont,
just outside Paris.

He sat patiently
and followed the speakers.

It was a loud conference
of op-positions.

But his doodle of cats
and other real fantastic animals,
I can't recall exactly,
were stunning...

On the way to our last lunch,
Noam Chomsky,
who had dominated this gathering
of Nobel Prize winning biologists and world famous mathematicians,
philosophers, psychologists, anthropologists, (& etc),

walked up to him,
and shyly said:

"Perhaps
you remember me,
when I sat in your class at Harvard
with Roman Jakobson?"

He looked at Chomsky,
and slowly said:

"I'm sorry, but no".

Those were the only words
he would utter
in that conference.

By Achirri Chibikom 2009

Poetry

Gives you wings
Choice to sing
Freedom to fly
Not one to ply
Yet, one to land
And with a band
Take off without remorse
Landing back to concourse
With neither fear
Nor favour clear
In sight of cowards
With simple words.

Fertile Imagination

I took my niece to a department store.
Her touchy hands did give me a heart sore!
Upon rebuking her inquisitive hands,
“I touch with my eyes and see with my hands!”
She said with such certainty to astound
The sages of yore claiming their minds sound
Where in my niece I would just a poet see
With my pen in hand, I let the world see
How with the hands this can be possible
Even if all think it impossible!

Senile King B…

Who said sunset was not a medicine man?
Is the gruesome night with mysterious calm
Not the devil himself who would smile
At this old fool driven and left senile
To thinking himself Donne’s busy old fool
Swimming in ignorance, his glorious pool?

Old senile King, after twenty seven
Odd years, you’ve left our country so broken
By your deep greed the waters of the seas
Won’t come close to washing the joy that fills
Your measure so corrupt earning your name
That stinks a stench so putrid; what a shame!

The Good Old Sikh & Us

They would have loved to come in droves
As we sat watching flighty doves,
This good old Sikh behind his house
At Sugar Pine Court pined like a mouse

Contemplating peace that cloudy afternoon
Dreaming the sun peed peace here on earthly spoon
For the world to sip with pipes underground
Black gold running the ship of peace aground

This took our good old Sikh again behind
The house to scoop humans out of the bind;
In quiet meditation nodding to the world
Such abysmal nod that’s devoid of a word.

After Aliens

Everywhere, they’re after the aliens!
What crime they committed they know not!
But must be given names in every tongue!
Till they become hyphenated

And tagged home office made
Far from homeland born
In French let’s call them émigrés
Send them to South Africa they’ll become

Ma-kwe-re-kwe-re
If by accident they land in West Africa?
Imagine just how everywhere names shall sprout
Leaving no room they’re after the aliens!

My Fate, Their Gamble

Even if I need not cry, my pains must not go
Unheard by those who my progress would want to slow
I’ve amassed my strength and would like to fly sky-high
Far above foxes and kites thinking themselves sly.
My shadow must not only be left in the clouds
But cover them to mystify just like the shroud

Holding in it a secret to the world of men
So hidden to turn its life all amazement
Birds ply the skies, the eagle above all reign
Wherein the jungle only the lion pulls the rein
And would not on the same table dine with lame dogs
Among men herding flocks with big support from thugs

Thugs who would beat me to crying my pain aloud
Such pains I must not cry but make heard and be proud
Brut force fails where admittance of liability
Would have readily bred freedom and liberty
For all those like me refusing this wild trampling
Which always leaves heads and thugs with my fate gambling

Unlike the birds of the sky, topsy-turvydom
Is the catch word and in which jungle? No kingdom!
No kingdom for the lion priding itself the King
In the mist of such confusion a bush was king
Too blind ruling over the oil wells of the east
With the impunity of an absolute beast

James 1 would rule this world in demonology
And bring the beast and himself up to some deities
Theeing and thouing as par great nature;
This ploy to bring down the mighty, sure
Would make him greater than great in the eyes
Of those before whom about me he lies.

Dreams Die Not

When dreams mature, they cease to be dreams.
When streams dry up they cease to be streams.
One dream I had, I thought would bear fruits
Let my stream flow into its conduits
Without dam built but quickly emptied
To leaving my dream in stream buried.
But how wonderful dreams do not die
Like a hungry poor deprived of pie!
And buried ’live won’t be dreams that live
To be killed only by disbelief
We need kill to give the figment life
Leaving every tongue to say hi-five!

Just Today

Early morning daddy died!
Late this morning uncle died!
Early afternoon mum died!
Late afternoon auntie died!
Not before long brother died!
Shortly after cousin died!
Whose turn comes in this evening?
Shall he hit before the evening?
Where was he when we were kids?
Why is he here indeed?
You may as I wonder why?
Yes, he comes as aids; that’s why!
And his origin remains
Mystery in preserved domains
Where we live in hope to die;
Death our only hope won’t lie
To say our unborn babies
Are turned rock without ages
Just today, this today unjust
Hands turn poor lives into dust.

Upon the King’s Death

Shall my country feel let down?
Yes! The King’s! When he shall drown!
In his mansion flooded with wealth
That from our nation steals good health

Like cancer compounding with might
Our socio-political plight
That’s left our nation depleted;
So, why must the King not be ejected?

Now and just now push him to drown
And let woe sweep him off the ground;
Our ground he has stolen and sold
Wanting his deeds to go untold.

Upon making the scribe beggar
He makes his might appear bigger
Giving to him and his a leeway
To duplicate highwaymen: Waylay!

Our nation victim of this ambush
Has sent many a young man to the bush
Where we see they’ve fallen like angels
Heaven’s sounds sent away to hell not bells.