Anchor Song by Rudyard Kipling
Heh! Walk her round. Heave, ah heave her short again! Over, snatch her over, there, and hold her on the pawl. Loose all sail, and brace your yards back and full — Ready jib to pay her off and heave short all! Well, ah fare you well; we can stay no more with you, my […]
An Old Song by Rudyard Kipling
So long as ‘neath the Kalka hills The tonga-horn shall ring, So long as down the Solon dip The hard-held ponies swing, So long as Tara Devi sees The lights of Simla town, So long as Pleasure calls us up, Or Duty drivese us down, If you love me as I love you What pair […]
An Imperial Rescript by Rudyard Kipling
Now this is the tale of the Council the German Kaiser decreed, To ease the strong of their burden, to help the weak in their need, He sent a word to the peoples, who struggle, and pant, and sweat, That the straw might be counted fairly and the tally of bricks be set. The Lords […]
An Astrologer’s Song by Rudyard Kipling
To the Heavens above us O look and behold The Planets that love us All harnessed in gold! What chariots, what horses Against us shall bide While the Stars in their courses Do fight on our side? All thought, all desires, That are under the sun, Are one with their fires, As we also are […]
An American by Rudyard Kipling
If the Led Striker call it a strike, Or the papers call it a war, They know not much what I am like, Nor what he is, My Avatar. Throuh many roads, by me possessed, He shambles forth in cosmic guise; He is the Jester and the Jest, And he the Text himself applies. The […]
A Truthful Song by Rudyard Kipling
THE BRICKLAYER: I tell this tale, which is strictly true, Just by way of convincing you How very little, since things were made, Things have altered in building trade. A year ago, come the middle of March, We was building flats near the Marble Arch, When a thin young man with coal-black hair Came up […]
A Tree Song by Rudyard Kipling
(A. D. 1200) Of all the trees that grow so fair, Old England to adorn, Greater are none beneath the Sun, Than Oak, and Ash, and Thorn. Sing Oak, and Ash, and Thorn, good sirs, (All of a Midsummer morn!) Surely we sing no little thing, In Oak, and Ash, and Thorn! Oak of the […]
A Three-Part Song by Rudyard Kipling
I’m just in love with all these three, The Weald and the Marsh and the Down country. Nor I don’t know which I love the most, The Weald or the Marsh or the white Chalk coast! I’ve buried my heart in a ferny hill, Twix’ a liddle low shaw an’ a great high gill. Oh […]
A Tale of Two Cities by Rudyard Kipling
Where the sober-colored cultivator smiles On his byles; Where the cholera, the cyclone, and the crow Come and go; Where the merchant deals in indigo and tea, Hides and ghi; Where the Babu drops inflammatory hints In his prints; Stands a City — Charnock chose it — packed away Near a Bay — By the […]
A Song of Travel by Rudyard Kipling
Where’s the lamp that Hero lit Once to call Leander home? Equal Time hath shovelled it ‘Neath the wrack of Greece and Rome. Neither wait we any more That worn sail which Argo bore. Dust and dust of ashes close All the Vestal Virgin’s care; And the oldest altar shows But an older darkness there. […]
A Song of the White Men by Rudyard Kipling
1899 Now, this is the cup the White Men drink When they go to right a wrong, And that is the cup of the old world’s hate– Cruel and strained and strong. We have drunk that cup–and a bitter, bitter cup– And tossed the dregs away. But well for the world when the White Men […]
A Song of the English by Rudyard Kipling
Fair is our lot — O goodly is our heritage! (Humble ye, my people, and be fearful in your mirth!) For the Lord our God Most High He hath made the deep as dry, He hath smote for us a pathway to the ends of all the Earth! Yea, though we sinned — and our […]
A Song of Kabir by Rudyard Kipling
Oh, light was the world that he weighed in his hands! Oh, heavy the tale of his fiefs and his lands! He has gone from the guddee and put on the shroud, And departed in guise of bairagi avowed! Now the white road to Delhi is mat for his feet. The sal and the kikar […]
A Song In Storm by Rudyard Kipling
Be well assured that on our side The abiding oceans fight, Though headlong wind and heaping tide Make us their sport to-night. By force of weather, not of war, In jeopardy we steer. Then welcome Fate’s discourtesy Whereby it shall appear How in all time of our distress, And our deliverance too, The game is […]
A Song at Cock-Crow by Rudyard Kipling
The first time that Peter denied his Lord He shrank from the cudgel, the scourge and the cord, But followed far off to see what they would do, Till the cock crew–till the cock crew– After Gethsemane, till the cock crew! The first time that Peter denied his Lord ‘Twas only a maid in the […]
A Smuggler’s Song by Rudyard Kipling
If you wake at midnight, and hear a horse’s feet, Don’t go drawing back the blind, or looking in the street. Them that ask no questions isn’t told a lie. Watch the wall, my darling, while the Gentlemen go by! Five and twenty ponies, Trotting through the dark — Brandy for the Parson, ‘Baccy for […]
A Ripple Song by Rudyard Kipling
Once red ripple came to land In the golden sunset burning– Lapped against a maiden’s hand, By the ford returning. Dainty foot and gentle breast– Here, across, be glad and rest. “Maiden, wait,” the ripplee saith; “Wait awhile, for I am Death!” “Where my lover calls I go– Shame it were to treat him coldly– […]
A Recantation by Rudyard Kipling
1917 (To Lyde of the Music Halls) What boots it on the Gods to call? Since, answered or unheard, We perish with the Gods and all Things made–except the Word. Ere certain Fate had touched a heart By fifty years made cold, I judged thee, Lyde, and thy art O’erblown and over-bold. But he–but he, […]
A Pict Song by Rudyard Kipling
Rome never looks where she treads. Always her heavy hooves fall On our stomachs, our hearts or our heads; And Rome never heeds when we bawl. Her sentries pass on–that is all, And we gather behind them in hordes, And plot to reconquer the Wall, With only our tongues for our swords. We are the […]
A Nativity by Rudyard Kipling
1914-18 The Babe was laid in the Manger Between the gentle kine — All safe from cold and danger — “But it was not so with mine, (With mine! With mine!) “Is it well with the child, is it well?” The waiting mother prayed. “For I know not how he fell, And I know not […]
A General Summary by Rudyard Kipling
We are very slightly changed From the semi-apes who ranged India’s Prehistoric clay; He that drew the longest bow Ran his brother down, you know, As we run men down to-tday. “Dowb,” the first of all his race, Met the Mammoth face to face On the lake or in the cave: Stole the steadiest canoe, […]
A Code of Morals by Rudyard Kipling
Now Jones had left his new-wed bride to keep his house in order, And hied away to the Hurrum Hills above the Afghan border, To sit on a rock with a heliograph; but ere he left he taught His wife the working of the Code that sets the miles at naught. And Love had made […]
A Charm by Rudyard Kipling
Take of English earth as much As either hand may rightly clutch. In the taking of it breathe Prayer for all who lie beneath. Not the great nor well-bespoke, But the mere uncounted folk Of whose life and death is none Report or lamentation. Lay that earth upon thy heart, And thy sickness shall depart! […]
A Carol by Rudyard Kipling
Our Lord Who did the Ox command To kneel to Judah’s King, He binds His frost upon the land To ripen it for Spring — To ripen it for Spring, good sirs, According to His Word. Which well must be as ye can see — And who shall judge the Lord? When we poor fenmen […]
The Storm by Rainbow Reed
The Storm by Rainbow Reed On granite rock, The woman sat. Damp hair trickled down her back, Azure highlights glimmering, Golden curls shimmering. Seaweed sparkled; waving wildly White foam horses rear and pound, Surging through the rocky mound. Crashing against the sleeping stone. Woman sits and Stares alone. Black cloud glares, Fog horn blares, Lightning […]
The Mystic Isle by Rainbow Reed
The isle arose from swirling mists, Slicing through the broken skies, Lurking beneath the whitened waters, Dark hungry fangs of piercing stone Impatiently waiting for their prey: A trawler beached on Mystic Rock. Darkened creatures with heads of foam, Shake seaweed hair and madly moan. Watch wood crash into surging tides, Splinters fly, while the […]
The Chipmunk by R. L. Karlowsky
The Chipmunk by R. L. Karlowsky The Chipmunk ran from tree to burrow, gathering food to store for tomorrow. From sunrise to set he filled his stores, the others laughed, take a break from your chores. The Crow stopped him quick in his track, where do you go, you’re running so fast? The Chipmunk panting, […]
The Sandbox by Rachel McKibbens
for Lisa or Laurie We held each other in silence mouth against mouth blood & thunder scorching the grass Behind the shed I played the husband brutish breadwinner choking her flesh in my troubled hands pulling her head back to lick from neck to ear in frenzied thrill The kind of love I learned from […]
Since you asked by Radames Antonio Cruz
I’m nothing but a shell of what once was Coming out of a personal hell Where, although I did not choose to stay, still often I would dwell Unchained but in a cell, it seems, made from the very cells, Which make up my physical being This me What I am I cannot tell For […]
Primrose Rose by Rainbow Reed
Primrose Rose by Rainbow Reed Silently, they stopped to stare, At the freak with raven hair, His eyes rings of Dante black, Angry looks burnt through his back. Strange black clothes flapped in the air. Flying back to darkened lair. Primrose Close, closed its eyes, Abnormals were despised. Close people; pillars of good, Bedrock, of […]
Prayers by Rainbow Reed
Jimmy Choos’ stalked across the floor, Ripping, clawing against the antiqued oak, Stuttered, stiffened; listened to deep silence Then slowly circled, nowhere once more. The gold straps coiled around her calf’s, Winding, binding, painfully twisting… D. and G. suit clinging about her, Her grey silk blouse rustled in the breeze, While around her stalk, staccato […]
Snow & Ice by Quincy Troupe
Snow & Ice by Quincy Troupe ice sheets sweep this slick mirrored dark place space as keys that turn in tight, trigger pain of situations where we move ever so slowly so gently into time — traced agony the bright turning of imagination so slowly grooved through revolving doors, opening up to enter mountains where […]
Untitled by Quincy Troupe
Untitled by Quincy Troupe in brussels, eye sat in the grand place cafe & heard duke’s place, played after salsa between the old majestic architecture, jazz bouncing off all that gilded gold history snoring complacently there flowers all over the ground, up inside the sound the old white band jammin the music tight & heavy, […]
Poem Reaching For Something by Quincy Troupe
Poem Reaching For Something by Quincy Troupe we walk through a calligraphy of hats slicing off foreheads ace-deuce cocked, they slant, razor sharp, clean through imagination, our spirits knee-deep in what we have forgotten entrancing our bodies now to dance, like enraptured water lilies the rhythm in liquid strides of certain looks eyeballs rippling through […]
I Hardly Remember by Rafael Guillen
I Hardly Remember by Rafael Guillen I hardly remember your voice, but the pain of you floats in some remote current of my blood. I carry you in my depths, trapped in the sludge like one of those corpses the sea refuses to give up. It was a spoiled remnant of the South. A beach […]
Not Fear by Rafael Guillen
Not Fear by Rafael Guillen Not fear. Maybe, out there somewhere, the possibility of fear; the wall that might tumble down, because it’s for sure that behind it is the sea. Not fear. Fear has a countenance; It’s external, concrete, like a rifle, a shot bolt, a suffering child, like the darkness that’s hidden in […]
Online Lover by Rainbow Reed
City sounds screamed and swirled, Sirens raced through neon world, Shutters shook, while ghost trucks sped Lewd vacant sign flashed deep red. Her laptop buzzed and flickered, While angry parents bickered. She stared at the screen entranced, Red electric shadows danced. Angry voices drifted near, Pa sailed in on wave of fear, “Switch that off!” […]
One Day You Will Miss Me.. by Rahul S
My love is not supposed to miss you Like the Tom misses the Jerry every time.. It’s like a clock; we are in the same perimeter But we can’t stay close to each other. One day you will miss me, And it will be same as missing your shadow.. You will miss my talks, And […]
O my Lord by Rabi’a
O my Lord, the stars glitter and the eyes of men are closed. Kings have locked their doors and each lover is alone with his love. Here, I am alone with You. O my Lord, if I worship you from fear of hell, burn me in hell. If I worship you from hope of Paradise, […]
Not Fear by Rafael Guillen
Not Fear by Rafael Guillen Not fear. Maybe, out there somewhere, the possibility of fear; the wall that might tumble down, because it’s for sure that behind it is the sea. Not fear. Fear has a countenance; It’s external, concrete, like a rifle, a shot bolt, a suffering child, like the darkness that’s hidden in […]