you to me come in parts,
regardless of hearts--

numbing yours ears,
as if no one hears;

then next day you see me and deny
that we ever were close, a passing lie;

in one part you're open and talk,
distancing,  a competitive crosstalk;

in vain my smile, my airs to engage
you in this hapless chat--yet you upstage

me;  next day you come all quiet,
          your eyes
absent elsewhere, thoughts in sighs;

with a new face every time we meet,
when'll ours hearts learn to rhyme?

isn't there a future for us together in
        joy--
isn't there in time a chance to enjoy?

                                       -by
                              Hakim H. Kassim.
                              (-d. March 22, 2025)
                              /-Jigjiga.

Every drop its own

pathway, that's how water makes --


its way to the sea.

BELATED RELEASE.

for all the wide world that I've seen,
it's but only myself that I could have
      been---

what a way a whole built life to tarnish,
although everything in it we cherish!

the distance seems final which now
     bears us apart,
yet you thrive glowing day and night
     through my heart.

alas of late!  mine's not been with calm
     and ease,
although i struggle, and seek in vain,
     for a  just release:

wearily clinging to mere scenes in
     remembrance
of love, and joy , days of brilliance--

yet yesterday is farther than tomorrow,
no use then to be stuck with mere sorrow,

and time is lent to you by hand of  death,
all you say and do is so scribbled from
           birth;

what a world  for all hope we live in--
knowing that all'd be destroyed which
             we ever begin!

                                        -by
                             Hakim H. Kassim.
                           (d. March 16, 2025)

('finalized' version)

           -Over My Grave.

     "I know  not what I could have
                        been, but feel
       I am not what I should be--let it end."
                                                 -Lord Byron
         (to my sister, Fowsia)

Let there be no pretense to sadness,
       or  mourning in vain
Over this my humble grave---my
       long-lost home where at last I
           return
To---where all content lived before
      ambition drove us all insane,
For it's been this grave  I deeply yearn:
I'll care little to cherish, if I could,
       beyond this my very grave,
So much of loss and sorrow has
       been my lot,  the pain undue,
And this world, to me,  has been too
      cold to care, with nothing ultimately
         to save;
From the wealthy trouble undue,
      from the tender-hearted love untrue:
I've seen 'the wise' gather and rule
       perforce
For a tyrant-prince---a dishonest
       man without clue or conscience
Stubbornly pursue to **** his own
       wife,  even after divorce;
Insisting it's of a high 'state need'--so
        atrocious;
No, I'm glad to be home, dear sister,
        to my  sweet nature:
Glad,  glad to awaken at last, glad
        that an unkind world leaves me
           to my dream;
Done, done away with  fast-fading world
      with foredoomed pretense to love and
          adventure;
Glad to awaken from childish
      nightmare, again to be  a real Hakim.

                                           -by
                                 Hakim H. Kassim.
                                 (March 03, 2025/Jigjiga)

Too many gave deeply thought,
  Too many have come and gone,
Too many in dreams truly sought,
  For you to have it lost or won.

Too many climb-up their dreams light
  If only too fast they're washed ashore--
Or left out to be 'acquinted with the
          night,'
With no second chance, beaten to the
          core.

And too many have put their hearts with
         trust
  In brute, brute another's heart,
In the end with no love but driven to
        dust--
  Having foregone any chance to restart.

For too many fail of us to give another
  Try, too readily to treat with hate
The lover with whom they felt together:
  For too many of us lose lest we cannot
         await.

                            -by Hakim H. Kassim.

2025.
a new year dawned casual and high,
but  that  I felt a sullen note of good-bye,

embellished with a truer joy than the
     whole world
could give,  yet I saw we took another
      year for granted despite this cold

lonely world,  and as others went 'happy'
     around with balloons decorous,
nature slip me into a new turn all
     anonymous;

and so all welcomed a new year, smiles
     flowery,
while I was beginning to negotiate an
      end of journey--

isn't a true joy, then, that year anew
with 2025 come with adieu and final
        end?

                      -by Hakim Kassim
                       (Jan.25.2025/Jgjga)

(for  Agere)

for your casual caresses, to soothe
the daily tread , and make smooth

this cold, cold world for poor soul of me;
for that ever-ready smile that drives me

on by the hour; that look in your eyes,
and for that knowing touch that sways
      away all my 'whys;'

for Time and Space which only draw us
          together
and for all the reasons that make us
          see one  in the other:

I'm thankful to all Nature and Chance
to keep us in that moment that saw us
         together at once.

                    -by Hakim H. Kassim.
                       (May 19, 2025)