hot.
humid.
dream in the dark.
wet thoughts.
drowsy nightingales.
hemingway's tight-tongued heroes.
summer shower.
july miracle:
do we mistake love for lust?   
or leave out the truth at price of loss? 
                
                                               -by
                                   Hakim H. Kassim.
                                   (c. September. 1988)

dust.
crowds.
rain.
'asc?' voice of a young girl--
belated recognition.
summer at end.
smile.
love-laden look.
silence of promises scribbled inside.
hope--
heart?
thought.
walking home!
'a world without end.'

                                          -by
                              Hakim H. Kassim.
                             (September 04. 2016)

"To part at last without kiss,
            Beside the haystack  in the floods."
                                            -William Morris.

I cannot give you reasons enough,
I do not myself understand

The loud lover, praying in sin,
Or the pain of those  who sin in prayer.

A good-bye hurts a hundred times more,
Emptying the soul, embittering the heart,

Much more than a fatal spear-wound
         would.
The happy love is flown, a by-gone glow;

Locked in memory's gloomy corridors;
A mere past, life imprisoned in grief;

Robbed of fulfillment, future condemned
       to tears,
Gazing sadly over the prey of previous
       existence.

A good-bye hurts.

                                             -by
                                  Hakim H. Kassim.
                                  (d. December 12, 1990)

snow-windy.
ice in raindrops.
hefty ventures.
brookner, anita:
latecomers '89.
thomasses,
just too many.
mind-plays.
churning hopes.
wrestle.
some way out.
'i did love her then!'
mind-quake.
regroup.
by-gones.
grave-yard stuff.
'oh, now: you & i.'


                                           -by
                               Hakim H. Kassim.
                                (d. August, 2016)

Come, O come!

Come and see how I cry
Forever without tears,
And the years wane and wax,
With me waiting for you;

Come and see this soul
That has yet to learn to laugh,
And how life wears
On a heart wandering meaningless in
        Time;

Without your sound and  soul;
I am the heart that beats loud,
Waking up Bodari among the dead,
Waving for the ghost of Romeo;

I am the blood that runs fast,
Leaving the familiar and the known,
Believing in the uncertain to come as
        Reality:

I hope to see soon
The Light to myLife,
The tender tears to my thirsty eyes.

                                             -by
                                  Hakim H. Kassim.
                                  (c . Fall, 1988)

Yet in the dark,  alone in the dark!
There I hear the loud lonely bark
From hopes gone with the years,
Yesterday's passions with heavy tears;
The high-held dreams,  long wont to
      roam--
The noisy joys thatt were my own--
Yet now I only see them there when alone
In the dark,  in silence to moan,
And weak in word,  yet high in heart,
Explain to the young  boy I once was and
      now apart,
The tumult of time,  the shade of years،
The unforgiving passage of unshed tears!

                                               -by
                                    Hakim H. Kassim.

You coud cut the distance then
Between us, and now you come when
I have left the living years of times ago,
Together we had shared no tomorrow,
Only too many todays,
Oh, and our ****** father and his ways!
So much lost in the rain,
We now shake over in  pain!
A world of give, and no receive!
In silence we look, in sacrifise conceive--
Loved faces are gone,
Here come new ones,  with our ways
         done!

                                               by
                                  Hakim H. Kassim
                            (d. September 13, 2016).

In a world of dying
Meant to hide no meaning,

There are no highs, no heroes,
No sweets, baby, only woes--

Sufferings you gently leave at once.
Death'd come but only by chance,

Never for you to feel complete and ready
      to go,
The Killing Angel stands sleepless and
      on the go;

High and twice  above the clouds by
      measure
Is his knee, collecting souls at pleasure;

Throwing this to speeding cars,
And that to stupid wars,

And, whatever the reason he gives,
He nonetheless just takes.

No use! all love is but a preparation
For something there's  got to be for a
       notion,

Yet you and I must be content with the
        end
Of Love as 'streaming eyes' and with
       nothing to amend!
                                               -by
                                   Hakim H.  Kassim.
                                (d. September 10,  2016)

Pardon this heart that loomily bounced,
That it may in this life's long night
Restored somehow be to household of
     peace,
Which, in grave or before,
Can give relief to owner's  pain:
  >It is concerned tears that aflame flow,
  >Which render fatal fears so nearly real.

From when reason first stroke the race on
           Solon's tongue,
Strong stood and made its roars heard,
To the ears of that trouble- gotten
           Hellenic year,
Whose winter of rage brought drought to
            intellect,
Convenience wounds it at chance in
            every age:
   >If 'winning' we see when guns roar,
   >Then dark be right, we to all beauty
           blind!

                                              -by
                                   Hakim H. Kassim.
                                   (d. January, 1989)

(for Sulekha Amin Omar)

                "Omnia vincit amor."
                                                -Virgil.
I see vast seas asleep in your eyes;
And mere smiles that pour joy into  my
      heart,
I see in you a blessed beauty unknown up
      till now!    

I see you as the sun treads westward,
And arrows spread as blind sky reflects
I see you alone among all who under the
       sky live!

I see the delight you bring to a troubled
        spirit
And see the dawn of New Spring as you
      in my thoughts come ,
I see you all the time, Darling, lest I Love
      You forevermore!
                
                                           -by
                                 Hakim Kassim.
                                (c Fall, 1989)

(for K. Briggs, Portsmouth)

             "All that ever was joyous
                   and clear and fresh,
             [your] music doth surpass "
                                       -Percy Shelley.

I do not know the  reason why
The world turns with me when you walk
         by,

With a thousand words scarred across
        your face,
Breaking down my defense with a casual
        gaze.

Morning or evening when you walk by,
My heart skips a beat,  lost in
       the 'you-and- I;'

With your light step a vivid link to
        a higher grace--
At a different time, at a different place!

Your eyes turn away as you pass, as if we
        were kidding one another,
As if no two were meant to be together!

You go your way,  leaving me lost and
        amazed:
So much said in so little expressed!
  
                                               -by
                                   Hakim H. Kassim.
                                  (d.January, 2000)

"Je pense donc je  suis."
                                  -Descartes, 1637.

You'll never know,
Though forever wonder

Of the day of your  feast!
It's an unknown moment

In the long annals
Of the Universe's  clock;

And you blame things--
People, places,  principles,

For not giving you enough,
Or not giving you at all.

In fact, you're to blame:
The sheep with the scar,

Cleaning out with naive acts
What might have been of use to you;

Your mind and body fight,
Fight, because that's  all they do,

That's all they CAN know!
Ah, such Cartesian discovery:

One set against the  other,
Without end or result;

For evermore, like ebb and flow;
Day and night, up  and down.

Was Jesus the  solving synthesis--
Sprite or Spirit? He came and left--sole
        individual!

Dualism yet persists,  as before:
Keep reigning as King in your 'mind,'

Though to 'matter' you're
One among six  billion hapless faces!
 
                                               -by
                                   Hakim H. Kassim.
                                  (d. November, 1988)