There's no other to  grieve your lost hope,
   It's for you to face and cope;
With life's various despairs by yourself
         alone,
And alone must, wrestle  and have it won;
Family would smile with you but for a
        moment,
And no friend could vouchsafe for you
       on Day of Judgement;
For so many will come 'round you for
       embrace,
Yet on your own you must ride on life's
       every chase;
Though we rejoice in hope on every new
       morrow,
One couldn't care less for his own
       brother's sorrow!
    
                                         -by
                              Hakim H. Kassim.  
                        (d.September 21, 2024)

(for huda)
you don't care to remember yesterday--
even if you were the one who took the
          wrong way--

just to say you're "sorry," and make your
          peace,
for we'd then get-off on a new plate with
         some ease;

where's your conscience? aren't you for a
         minute sane?
you used shout at me with all your false
         complaint--

never caring to listen, too often baking
        my heart so sore,
till you at last broke our bond, and more!

--ah, how patient and quiet i bore your
         abuse,
for you then were after money,
         and  without excuse--

determined as i then was, wanting to
         keep us together
as a family, soon to be a father and a
        mother;

there you're with false tears, and false
        argument all the same;
humbled,  i ignored who's right and who
        not, taking all the blame,

you didn't care to listen but ran  away
       with your  "cousins" in team,
and i was left bitter alone, just to moan
       and  ponder over broken dream:

and tonight you come, seven years to this
       day,
imploring with  pleas of love, not to delay

a love,  a you gone years ago: if i accept
you now anyway, how wouldn't it be
       down again swept?

              
                         -by Hakim H. Kassim.
                         (September 11, 2024)

-YOU.

the morning-sun glows in a Promise so
      celestial,
over your tender face, a soul too dear, too
      adorable

for this world  (of envy and hate) itself to
       astound
over  you--a Beauty, never seen or heard
       around;

reflecting in seductive rays across your
      face, with me stricken with your
          gleam,
your heavenly charms which I only fancy
     in my best dream--

that lip that I'd not tire of kissing but in
     my wishful unrest,
and those ******* I long for beyond what
    can be expressed;

a willing prisoner, I'm lost in the mystery
    of your eyes,
and not with my hand, but with all my
    heart I  glimpse your thighs;

your quiet, indifferent airs, your smile
arresting me in heart for longer than a
     while---

remembering, like seeing, you easily
     drives me  most lonely--
of all women, for Beauty aren't you
     the one and only?

                              -by Hakim Kassim.
                             (d. September 03, 2024)

Come winds, from afar and and near,
Charge, waters of the  world,  to sweep
Tyrants out who use  humble fellows with
           no care
In corporate classes,  for profit to reap!

Oh, how false and  mad-lived is this!
Trading their human  nature for only
          dollar  in truth,
And despite what the  mind urges to
          enlist---
Love, and Care, fraternal hope for youth!

To where is wisdom  gone, does any one
           know?
Will Corporation  give care and love?
It's false for other than Allah to bow:
Will dollar keep them out of  the  grave
          and above?
              
                         -by Hakim H. Kassim.
                           (July 15, 2015)

Eyes I saw full of me,
I search around, yet cannot  see;
  In the tumult and the dark,
I remain stuck with their mark;
  I have forfeited hope and  health,
I seek nor fame nor wealth--
  For I well know all only  fleet,
nor Care nor Love to meet!.
                    
                             -by Hakim H. Kassim.

I am he who through that long November
       night
Watched your eyes with untamed delight,
Earnestly travelling into the mystery of
      your mind;
In the highnoon of heart we heard and
      spoke the same notes;
I am he who once held you in willing
       arms,
Unknitting wells  of passion beneath
       your heart;
I am he who wrote a Writ with you,
Sowing in your heart a Promise not to
      break the shared bond;
I am he who, in trust of  love, am a voice
     echoing in the skies;
 Faithed, in a leap for your love, and your
        hand, and that look in your eyes;        
The sea here sheds tears as it the earth
        crushes,
The shore beside me pains as water race
       back to their depths,
And I am he who with confused past
      shares the anguish of the sea.
Farewell!
And now I turnto be living with your
      memory, without blaming fate.

                                                -by
                                     Hakim H.  Kassim.

".  . . without hope change  
            In sleep she seemed to  walk
                   forlorn."
                           -(fro) Tennyson's   (poem)  
                            "Mariana" (1830).
     (for Diana, who inspired the poem
      in  visionary gleam)

And so you came  loaded with  lament
   Of  all the world  aflame in your  eyes,
           so calm and wide,
Grieving perhaps  over 'might-have-
           beens,'  yet with intent--
   Sorrow the kind  that had no home but
          with  restraint in  pride,
A kind that made  you not weak but
         aweary  by  adverse  tide;
  Then sat yourself  before me in  quiet
          unease,  sweet  mournful,
 Letting go of all you truly are,  all you
          could  really  do--
So much lost to  an unfair world  that
          neither  revered the beautiful,
  Nor shielded  the weak  from its
          cruel  cold! a world  that had no
               chance for  you--
An indifferent  world that never knew
          you for real,  for true.

                          -by Hakim Kassim.
                           (d. Dec. 14. 2021)