Henry -
I had a good deal of difficulty with this one because all the wonderful Kiplingesque place names and color make me want to chant it aloud - it cries for a good, thumping meter and drums and bugles to carry it along - but when I tried to read it to myself I kept getting lost. It's a train with wonderful cargo, but it needs a track.
Clumsy metaphors aside, I had a serious problem with the poem because there does not seem to be a consistent, coherent meter or sense of rhythm, and consequently no flow to the stanzas. The unusual rhyme scheme lacks support. This could work well in a shorter poem - particularly something about, for example, jamgling urban displacment, or a sense of loss or disassociation, where the wandering meter could underline the message - but here you are presenting a grand, sweeping travelogue of a poem; and I feel you need a much stronger amd more consistent sound track to carry it through. (To be honest, the meter seemed so vague that I worry that I'm missing something - looking for IP when it's not even intended to be there. However, if this is deliberately rhymed but non-metrical, I still have a problem in that, as non-met, it doesn't grab me and carry through the line breaks.)
The ababccab rhyme scheme is intriguing. Personally, I prefer the couplet providing a rim shot at the end of each stanza, but this can also work. I haven't encountered it before. Yours? Was it a deliberate intention, or - which is what happens to me - did it just push its way into the poem?
Summary - I feel this has great possibilities with the trove of rich material it contains, but I'd feel more comfortable with a stronger meter.
Michael
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