Could man be drunk for ever
With liquor, love, or fights,
Lief should I rouse at morning
And lief lie down of nights.

But men at whiles are sober
And think by fits and starts,
And if they think, they fasten
Their hands upon their hearts.

Too lazy to be ambitious,
I let the world take care of itself.
Ten days' worth of rice in my bag;
a bundle of twigs by the fireplace.
Why chatter about delusion and enlightenment?
Listening to the night rain on my roof,
I sit comfortably, with both legs stretched out.

Lead us, Evolution, lead us
Up the future's endless stair;
Chop us, change us, **** us, **** us.
For stagnation is despair:
Groping, guessing, yet progressing,
Lead us nobody knows where.

Wrong or justice, joy or sorrow,
In the present what are they
while there's always jam-tomorrow,
While we tread the onward way?
Never knowing where we're going,
We can never go astray.

To whatever variation
Our posterity may turn
Hairy, squashy, or crustacean,
Bulbous-eyed or square of stern,
Tusked or toothless, mild or ruthless,
Towards that unknown god we yearn.

Ask not if it's god or devil,
Brethren, lest your words imply
Static norms of good and evil
(As in Plato) throned on high;
Such scholastic, inelastic,
Abstract yardsticks we deny.

Far too long have sages vainly
Glossed great Nature's simple text;
He who runs can read it plainly,
'Goodness = what comes next.'
By evolving, Life is solving
All the questions we perplexed.

Oh then! Value means survival-
Value. If our progeny
Spreads and spawns and licks each rival,
That will prove its deity
(Far from pleasant, by our present,
Standards, though it may well be).

An Epithaliamium

So Man, grown vigorous now,
Holds himself ripe to breed,
Daily devises how
To ******* his seed
And boldly fertilize
The black womb of the unconsenting skies.

Some now alive expect
(I am told) to see the large,
Steel member grow *****,
Turgid with the fierce charge
Of our whole planet's skill,
Courage, wealth, knowledge, concentrated will,

Straining with lust to stamp
Our likeness on the abyss-
Bombs, gallows, Belsen camp,
Pox, polio, Thais' kiss
Or Judas, Moloch's fires
And Torquemada's (sons resemble sires).

Shall we, when the grim shape
Roars upward, dance and sing?
Yes: if we honour ****,
If we take pride to Ring
So bountifully on space
The ***** of our long woes, our large disgrace.

The Thousandth Man.
By Rudyard Kipling.
My favourite poem.
~~~~
One man in a thousand , Solomon says ,
Will stick more close than a brother.
And it’s worth while seeking him half your days
If you find him before the other .
Nine hundred and ninety-nine depend
On what the world sees in you.
But the Thousandth Man will stand your friend
With the whole round world agin you.

‘Tis neither promise nor prayer nor show
Will settle the finding for ‘ee
Nine hundred and ninety-nine of ‘em go
By your looks ,or your acts ,or your glory .
But if he finds you and you find him.
The rest of the world don’t matter ;
For the Thousandth Man will sink or swim
With you in any water.

You can use his purse with no more talk
Than he uses yours for his spendings.
And laugh and meet in your daily walk
As though there had been no lendings.
Nine hundred and ninety-nine of ‘em call
For silver and gold in their dealings;
But the Thousandth Man he’s worth ‘em all
Because you can show him your feelings.

His wrong’s your wrong and his right’s your right .
In season or out of season.
Stand up and back it in all men’s sight-
With that for your only reason  !
Nine hundred and ninety-nine can’t bide
The shame or the mocking or laughter.
But the Thousandth Man will stand by your side.
To the gallows -foot and after !

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
By Rudyard Kipling.

Posted by Philip.
December 5th 2018.

In my opinion the best poem ever written
And one that I have tried to live by for the last twenty five years.

Oh! hush thee, my baby, the night is behind us,
  And black are the waters that sparkled so green.
The moon, o’er the combers, looks downward to find us
  At rest in the hollows that rustle between.

Where billow meets billow, there soft be thy pillow;
  Ah, weary, wee flipperling, curl at thy ease!
The storm shall not wake thee, nor shark overtake thee,
  Asleep in the arms of the slow-swinging seas.

Will you conquer my heart with your beauty; my sould going out from afar?
Shall I fall to your hand as a victim of crafty and cautions shikar?

Have I met you and passed you already, unknowing, unthinking and blind?
Shall I meet you next session at Simla, O sweetest and best of your kind?

Does the P. and O. bear you to meward, or, clad in short frocks in the West,
Are you growing the charms that shall capture and torture the heart in my breast?

Will you stay in the Plains till September—my passion as warm as the day?
Will you bring me to book on the Mountains, or where the thermantidotes play?

When the light of your eyes shall make pallid the mean lesser lights I pursue,
And the charm of your presence shall lure me from love of the gay “thirteen-two”;

When the peg and the pig-skin shall please not; when I buy me Calcutta-build clothes;
When I quit the Delight of Wild *****; foreswearing the swearing of oaths ;

As a deer to the hand of the hunter when I turn ’mid the gibes of my friends;
When the days of my freedom are numbered, and the life of the bachelor ends.

Ah, Goddess! child, spinster, or widow—as of old on Mars Hill whey they raised
To the God that they knew not an altar—so I, a young Pagan, have praised

The Goddess I know not nor worship; yet, if half that men tell me be true,
You will come in the future, and therefore these verses are written to you.

I must admit:
I am unwilling to give
even a hint of consideration
to the thought of being anything,
anyone other than that brilliant,
briefly lit comet,
hurtling toward home.

It matters not
where I land,
or who takes pictures from the ground.

This is only a trip.
This is just a ride.
So fleeting, so fiery,
that you wouldn't want to pause to wonder
what you look like up there,
or else you might miss
the very things that make
your fires unforgettable
and your blast burn true.

Remember the pitch of the leaky faucet

In the third floor restroom

Neither male

Nor female

Nor both.

Speaking in unison

That pitch

What was the ******* pitch

Dribbling eighth notes

Tears worth pinning on your wall

Next to your unused bottle of sunscreen

From the time we drank in your living room

And I realized you cared.

There is a star on my pocket

But I won’t remember it tomorrow

Nor will I remember why

I connected the six-petaled flower hole

To Afganistan. Sleek. Smooth.

I slid a straw through my ear

Gazing past the green disoperation

And noticed two formings of pimples beneath the right brow

But maybe I imagined that too

Along with the adrenaline and curiosity and false negativity.

Shooting through my ankles

Enveloping every muscle fiber

Every menacing footstep

I approach the door of Debussy

Wading deep into the kelly green

“Open” sign

Sharpied just so no one ever flips it.

Every frazzled hair follicle  executes

Frustration towards the poor soul

Entering doom.

Marracas from elementary

I whispered beneath my mustache

“Fancy seeing you here”

Lingering my capillaries over their stitching

A live animal in a dead environment.

Pink toes and the Sostenuto pedal

Beckon my return to civilization

I remember why I’m here.

I remember why I’m not.