If I were hanged on the highest hill,
Mother o' mine, O mother o' mine!
I know whose love would follow me still,
Mother o' mine, O mother o' mine!

If I were drowned in the deepest sea,
Mother o' mine, O mother o' mine!
I know whose tears would come down to me,
Mother o' mine, O mother o' mine!

If I were damned of body and soul,
I know whose prayers would make me whole,
Mother o' mine, O mother o' mine!

Joseph Rudyard Kipling (1865 – 1936) English journalist, short-story writer, poet, and novelist. He was born in India, which inspired much of his work. His works of fiction include  "The Man Who Would be King" and the "Jungle Book"/ His Poems include "Mandalay", "The Gods of the Copybook Headings", "Gunga Din" and "If...." - Read more

This poem is in the public domain

Slim Sentinels
Stretching lacy arms
About a slumbrous moon;
Black quivering
Silhouettes,
Tremulous,
Stencilled on the petal
Of a bluebell;
Ink sputtered
On a robin’s breast;
The jagged rent
Of mountains
Reflected in a
Stilly sleeping lake;
Fragile pinnacles
Of fairy castles;
Torn webs of shadows;
And
Printed ’gainst the sky—
The trembling beauty
Of an urgent pine.

Helene Johnson (1906-1995) - Writer and poet during the Harlem Renaissance movement. Johnson published many poems in small magazines during the1920s and early 1930s, including the first and only issue of Fire!!. Although Johnson continued to write, and her work appeared in anthologies, she never published original poetry again. Read more

This poem is in the public domain.

Konstantinos Dimitriadis,  (1931 - 2020)  Greek poet, novelist, literary critic and scholar. Born in Thessaloniki, he was better known by his pen name Dinos Christianopoulos. His extensive work, published between 1947 and 1988 includes  "Age of Lean Cows", "Biography", Strangers' Knees", "Indefensible Yearning", "Suburbs", "Outcasts of the World", "Essays", "The Sculpture of Modern Thessaloniki", "Verse from the Army and  "With Art and Passion" He was awarded the 2011 National Grand Prix for Literature, but refused to pick it up. Photo Credit 

Words flow
off her tongue, like honey.
Sweet words of love's
temptation and
promises made.

Of all the days
Which may lay ahead,
The day I leave
Is the day I'll dread.

"....So here we still are, in the spring of 2022, perhaps a bit less alone. But now, as the pandemic begins to recede in at least parts of the world, something equally alarming has taken its place..."

“Putin makes Covid look good,” said a friend – a sentiment no doubt shared by many.....Read more

#Ukraine

I shall gather myself into myself again,
I shall take my scattered selves and make them one,
Fusing them into a polished crystal ball
Where I can see the moon and the flashing sun.

I shall sit like a sibyl, hour after hour intent,
Watching the future come and the present go,
And the little shifting pictures of people rushing
In restless self-importance to and fro.

Sara Teasdale (1884 – 1933) was an American lyric poet. She was born Sarah Trevor Teasdale in St. Louis, Missouri, and used the name Sara Teasdale Filsinger after her marriage in 1914. She is the author of many poetry collections. In 1918 she was awarded both the Columbia Poetry Prize (now the Pulitzer) and the Poetry Society of America Prize for her "Love Songs" collection published in 1917 .... Read more

Blue was the streak,
in her raven, dark hair,
hiding the face,
of the one, unaware
of a new love,
if she would dare,
as I caught a glimpse,
from the top of the stair.

Long were the years,
when you were mine.
We loved our life,
our hearts entwined.
Please let us love
until the end of time.

Out of the night that covers me,
Black as the Pit from pole to pole,
I thank whatever gods may be
For my unconquerable soul.

In the fell clutch of circumstance
I have not winced nor cried aloud.
Under the bludgeonings of chance
My head is bloody, but unbowed.

Beyond this place of wrath and tears
Looms but the Horror of the shade,
And yet the menace of the years
Finds, and shall find, me unafraid.

It matters not how strait the gate,
How charged with punishments the scroll,
I am the master of my fate:
I am the captain of my soul.

This poem is in the public domain.

William Ernest Henley (1849 – 1903) British poet, writer, critic and editor in late Victorian England. He wrote several books of poetry. Read more

Break away,
you beautiful one.
Leave me now,
my time is done.

Love was here,
now it's gone.
The words ring,
on and on.