Each smile a map, each line a trail,
Etched softly on the skin's embrace.
A journey marked in fine detail,
The story written on your face.

The laugh that danced around the eyes
Still lingers in a softened fold,
A map of moments, lows and highs,
A quiet story, gently told.

Not every crease was born from pain,
Some stem from joy that overflowed.
Expressions that we can't restrain,
Emotions that our hearts bestowed.

So wear these lines with quiet pride,
They are the footprints of your days.
A testament to life applied,
A living poem on your face’s page.

THE LAST WORDS in the taste of love –
As I summon the sweetness to wash my palate
My skin can never find much rest in the day;
A makeshift bed; my body feels like a pallet.
Growing old, means having a mix of colours
Inside of my beard; making it a face palette.

But wouldn’t I love to own a palace –
To French kiss someone in Paris,
And to be loved by both her parents.

Find me a love that is apparent;
Stealing a lingering kiss, like stealing the time
But let’s not clock in the times you tick me off –
Just tick off my check-boxes, of being the one.

And let our love be a beautiful love ballet.

It's just another day
Under the Sun
Which is a good problem

There is nothing wrong about aging. We all have been aging since we came to life. To exist means to age.

a view--
things up in a view.
eyes to see,
heart--in me!
weather in unfairness,
ultimately for goodness.
unhappy, ignored---
unwilling, bored!
but a new-born world--
to reap and wield bold;
nothing from the past to deduce--
it's all a new-born delight to induce!
far-away in the sky clouds merge,
for a new-spring to emerge.

                                           -by
                               Hakim H. Kassim.
                              (-d. April 29, 2025)

If salvation ever came,
it came teeth-first.
I bit my own tongue last night,
tasted copper and salt like a curse I knew by name.
The blood pooled under my teeth,
hot and mean,
and I swallowed it like a promise I couldn’t keep.

I still dream of him standing in my doorway,
hands full of stones and silence,
eyes bright with the kind of cruelty that doesn't bother aiming,
and I wake up gnashing my teeth,
chewing through the rope of my own patience.

I’ve grown rabid in respite
all claws and bitten-down nails,
a beast pacing the borders of my own skin,
still biting down promises like bones.

Some nights I think if he came back,
I’d tear him apart
just to see if he bleeds the same color as me.
Then I'd leave him open,
let the stars learn his name,
and no one sang him back.

I’m in a contest I can’t win
Or even come in second.
My bird has flown from the streetlight arm
And taken promise with it.

Another lands and then departs
To mock my hopeful prayers
The sky teems with symbolic fowl
But I can’t suss their meaning.

A big one flew straight over me
But I can’t read its message.
Was it promising good health
Or telling me it’s sorry

That I’ll only get just what I have
To get me through tomorrow
And if I am not strong enough
The game will then be over.

Why are birds the messengers
In answer to my pleas
They send me signals I can’t read
And I walk on in darkness.
ljm