The library girl

Sits alone, absorbed in ghostly in ghostly
      ancient Greeks--
In the deathless thoughts of what once
      was
Passionate Sappho or truthful Sophocles;

Trying  tirelessly to chaunt their
       language,
To revive their gleam out of dry pages,
For long hours devoting to get back, back
       to them,
As she finally falls asleep in her
       exhaustion;

A homage is paid to the old 'Glory' in nap
       meditation,
And as this heavenly beauty travels
       through history's clock,
Safe in library warmth from the
       discomfort of winter snow,


The desk-lamp twinkles: It's time to go!
                

                                           ­     by
                                  Hakim H. Kassim.
                                 (d. November, 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)

(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)

New spring wind, a cold  sick fate
  For me that I've not seen you for years,
Though I loved, and still do, forever
             in-wait-
 Ah! that you  come but to quiet these
            my lonely tears;
I need you now more than before,
  Spring may come, and  summer follow
           with joy and laugher,
Something without you is broken at my
           core,
We parted, a long time has passed,  I've
          not been alive after
  I've come to see your smile no more, no
          more kiss
On your lips, that sound of your voice--
         are you not now dead,
  And where are you if alive, where's all,
         the love and promise,
So much time without you, our years are
         closing-in, soon to be led
  To sudden goodbyes, then the eerie
         silence of lonely graves
   Where we cannot meet,
O me--was that "all" Love gives?
         
                                        -by
                            Hakim H.Kassim.
                            (d. May 01,2023)

(to  NAH_)

-REAL LOVE.

i see it all over and  with you,
all i ever needed and want, love so true;

i see it in your eyes all aflame-
looking at you, inside I cannot  remain
      the same;

maybe minds, Dearest,  but hearts know
      not how to lie,
and so, Beloved, so revered, I just
      wouldn't talk by

to My heart's  Beloved,  not to  you,
i know language of  heart is true, sweet,
      holy and so true--

let's rejoice that we finally found one
       another;
for you and me, Dearest, there's no
       other.
  
                                              -by
                                    Hakim H. Kassim.
                                    (-d. July 19, 2023)
                                    /-Jigjiga.

I see it glowing in your eye, so new,
  And on those hips of yours, tender
         and lean,
Hosting Beauty in all its breadth and
         depth, I see the dew
  Of a new dawn in my heart and soul, to
         win
A new horizon  abrim with joy and
        with you lived in peace;
  Like Aurora in early-dawn mist
        carrying those 'milky thighs' that
            forever men's hearts deem
  To beat too fast, speechless in the quiet
         utter loss
In truelove's holy light, unable to awake,
         or dream
  And so is my heart in your  palms,
         whatever you say, wherever you go,
No words can express what in my heart
         wanes,
  What feelings, what thoughts, what
         hopes in want--
Nor how to your ignorance I cannot
        explain my pains,
  What with your love I see and know,
        you just can't
Imagine in your best mind, all things
        being equal:
  Of Joy, and Love,  and all in holy light
Of truelove; but alas! as theirs is a cry
       without content,
  The moth and the star, so truelove for
       you will only be dream of night,
Never to breathe daylight,  never to live
      what was meant
  With Joy, unconditioned love with no
       second-thoughts;
Your "Hi," said with a tremble of soul,
     with a defensive smile,
  Still self-conscious-- treading with
       needless pain,
Worries about tomorrows over which
        you hardly control for even a while,
  And second- thoughts that in our love
        you cannot explain,
Though in your mind you sport it--
        where's the joy of love you're
              supposed to  live, anyway?
                  

                                     ­          -by
                                   Hakim H. Kassim.
                                  (d. July 31, 2023)
                                   /- 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.

If ever I were to pick who could quite
      understand
Me, in mind and love, across entire
      land--

Who'd be the one love in my arms to
     hold,
Then and now, as throughout my days
     in this world:

The one girl who forever reigns in my
      heart and dream,
The one and only face in my mind
      agleam;

To forever caress and vividly kiss, and
      quietly just watch
Her deep dark eyes, and again sweetly
       touch

Her tender small *******, her slender
       waist to soothe around,
Breath to breath, with little moans in
        sound;

If ever I did, or do, love a ******* earth,
Or ever were to trust heart's hunch
         since birth,

It'd be you, S_,  in heaven or here--
And whatever you do, or don't, 'bout it,
         my vow you hear.

                                         -by
                                Hakim Kassim.
                               (-d. April 25, 2025).

Wild wishes, too high for worldly tries,
Celestial glows that do not fit into time
      and place,
  Lost love's tormented hopes and cries,
Come with fresh face at my dooryard.

Wild wishes, desires that cannot be
      quenched in poor world's weak  arms,
Joys treading my footsteps  from Heaven
       above,
    All my loves long ago, my sweet heart-
        felt  urges,
  Of all I ever seek, of all I ever wanted in
         heart,
Beckon to lead me to Higher Houses of
        content.

  Wild wishes, her face, her eyes, and the
         love I have for her,
Feelings I cannot put aside no matter
        what,
  The deep-felt dream of uniting with her
        in  truth,
She comes to me riding high on Wild
       Wishes for my  hand!

                                                 -by
                                     Hakim H. Kassim.

This is what happens when your own
         past--
Twisting and turning with you at some
         midnight hour-
  Becomes you, all over again at once,
          all too fast,
Overlapping you,  heart and soul,
          strenuous in power;
   Precious memories posted in
         unchartered  future;
Each note of thought  wearily clings, too
         often
  But a scene with  yourself,  demanding
         an answer,
Yet within past  content, drifting you to
         give-in, just to soften
  The unintelligable  trail, past wishes
         revived in ardor:
For, without  pain of the past, can
        there be possibility of  a future?

            
                                       -by
                          HAKIM H. KASSIM.
                           (d. March 25, 2024)

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.

"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)