Lovers that apart might
Reclaim their mastery over

Their wry hearts again,
And with pretentious smile

Might mask their wounds.
But you,  love! who departed

To sleep under the quiet grass,
That you may in solitude find

The peace with earth divorced,
Left me alone, a broken  heart:

Our promise of yore is now no more!
Nor can my weakened spirit peace attain,

Nor remembered love bring me relief;
Nor doom nor gloom offer me release,

Nor to any distraction myself give;
By divine chance we happily met,

And by divine plan we now apart,
As this year's grief teaches me in truth:

Consider the death of one so loved,
Merely such love's polite recusal!

                                          -by
                               Hakim H. Kassim.


  NOTE: This poem, "Requiem," was made in honor of my father, Dr. Hussein S. A. S. Kassim, written soon after his death in March of 1994.

Holiday in the Gulf
The intimate ones
With the night shift worn face
Of Uwaisi hospital nurse Clara
The queen of spades
In the attire of
Althaf Hotel boy Kassim
The king of clubs
With the face of my dad
Waiting for the postman
At the verandah of
The half finished house
The king of hearts
With the face of Abu
Staring at my young sister
When he comes to collect
The cut throat interest
Of the never ending debt
Hiding face down
For a full hand sweep
The trump diamond jack
Cornered in the hand
The waste twos and threes

Remember
The jobless gang home
The canal side cards play
Unaware to the opponent
With a scratch mark
Or a creased edge
Hinting the card in hand
The foul-trick playpal...
Breaking the trap
Jumping a fence
When the police ambush
Making me hide
In the abandoned ghost well
The saviour friend Ravunni

Keeping in mind friend
On the next home visit
A job visa for you

Here tonight when I am
Losing games one by one
Behind the opponent stands who
Invisible to prompt his cards
To make me win round by round
By honours and by fulls

On the phone at odd hours
Who is that from away home
What's the news so urgent

In the abandoned ghost well...

It waves hard, like
  An ordeal of times past;
Irresistible, it wears down
 Wilfully mortal endurance;
It worries, like summer sky,
  Setting the soul breathless;
In woeful tone the moth
  Haplessly weeps to stars far above;
Longing, infinite and vain,
   Furnishes the mood inside;
Outside, nighingale still
  Sings through the vacant autumn  sky.
                      
                                       -b­y
                             Hakim H. Kassim.

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)

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)

"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)

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)

"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)

(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)

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)

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.

flight,
light.
change. . .'plse!
plse understand!'
hindsight,
through the night.
no love lost,
'america' divorced.
'america' contorted
   me--glad i'm deported.
the devil'll come out of america, yes,
            ask me, I'll attest.'

                  -by Hakim Kassim.
                   (June, 2023)

(for Ifrah Osman Dahir)

The purposeful look,  a passing smile--
My eyes fixed at a whole world all the
       while--

A world of joy with your figure lean and
      smooth,
And what a world  you're for my cares
      to soothe;

By a sudden turn you  look at me with an
      amused frown,
Caught me off-guard, my eyes hushed for
       withdrawl:

Yet deep in me somewhere you caress
       and touch,
Speechless,, I'm lost in your lean figure  
     maybe to match--

For you're to me of that indelible Dew
      from Heaven:
No words need be  said, you're my
      beloved!

For I see scattered  across your face,
For which with fiery desire I yearn to
       gaze;

So if you sought to clasp a stretched
       caring hand,
I need you, with  my heart willing to
       understand;

Your rosy cheeks, though you seem
      not to care,
I have nothing to give but my heart---
      all and bare!

You seem somewhat weary with this
      indifferent,  this uncaring world:
Yet I envision you up and happy,  not as
      cold;

We never grow sick and tired of love,
Yet the unrest in your face sighs for
      a move

To come--the saving Knight on a
      Horseback:
Can I be the lucky guy no less the worse?
              
                                             -by
                                   Hakim H. Kassim.
                                  (-d.October 31, 2018)

(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)

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).

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)

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)

fatigued hope
weary steps.
ultimates--
   in surplus
" . . .do what's right."
dreams discarded.
times tried.
keys found.
years lost.
casts made,
casts kept:
hearts broken.
lengths paced.
parts on a limb.
"do as good men would!"
omens and murky sighs.
time will draw-in soon--
future becomes yesterday
where are you?
where, the dreams . . .?
what's in your paved face?

                                            -by
          ­                      Hakim H. Kassim.
                               (d. November 07, 2017)

(for Muhubo Ali-Nur)

LOVE.

morning breeze.
the world at ease.

cordial days--
onward, in blessed ways.

your future in another.
wanting to be together.

. . .wishing on a star?
oh, in love we are!

trusting the unknown future--
for with desire let's act mature.

will there be a broken heart?
we'll never be apart!

for keeps, forever:
to fall out? never.

my idea of the pure?
well, she's my only lure.

eclipses in soul,
for time's no one's fool.

so much more of  the  good--
so much good above mind and mood!

            
                                             -by 
                                 Hakim H. Kassim.
                                (June 08, 2017)
                                /-jigjiga.

autumn.
dreams, into ideas.
windy eves.
the far-away look.
tree-leaves.
dark eves.
wuthering heights.
firewoods.
a world in the yellow.
release.
warmth.
quiet.
intimacy.
looking.
time off.
promises anew.
'we'll see.'
                                         -by
                             Hakim H. Kassim.

THE PROPOSAL- (1).

just lost in your eyes,
for they are the answer to my whys!;
day and night, it's for you my soul weeps,
and  my poor heart for yours pleads,
for I love you so, by the exreme,
seeing well we belong to the same
       stream:
so between your ******* let me thrive,
there to rejoice in all love and life!
i do not mean less than for keeps
for my heart numbs at the mention of
       your  name,
O Love true & deep.

                                          -by
            ­                  Hakim H. Kassim.
                              (d..September 23, 2018)