Nziza Kelly

A can is cherished while full, 
then cast aside when empty.
Sleepless, you adore her
yet she leaves.

No sweetness can fill 
a heart that isn't yours.
Even her kindest words sound ordinary as a friend.

An angel returns to haunt your dreams.
You wish you'd never met her, yet your heart still answers.

When love is not meant to be, patience cuts deeper than steel.

A fallen soldier
still loving her,
with no way to turn back.

The city feels colder when the pocket is empty, while wealth makes even winter feel warm.
Sometimes the price of your perfume is another man's meal for a week.

Empty pockets can depress a man with a mountain of plans but no first step.
One meal cannot make a man secure; it only teaches him to hunger for the 
next.

Those who kneel may one day lead, but genius means little when no one follows.

And remember where you stand— for every place has a substitute.

A can is cherished while full, 
then cast aside when empty.
Sleepless, you adore her
yet she leaves.

No sweetness can fill 
a heart that isn't yours.
Even her kindest words sound ordinary as a friend.

An angel returns to haunt your dreams.
You wish you'd never met her, yet your heart still answers.

When love is not meant to be, patience cuts deeper than steel.

A fallen soldier
still loving her,
with no way to turn back.

The city feels colder when the pocket is empty, while wealth makes even winter feel warm.
Sometimes the price of your perfume is another man's meal for a week.

Empty pockets can depress a man with a mountain of plans but no first step.
One meal cannot make a man secure; it only teaches him to hunger for the 
next.

Those who kneel may one day lead, but genius means little when no one follows.

And remember where you stand— for every place has a substitute.

I am a writer, but I don’t make the words
I simply direct them like sheep in a herd
Sometimes an outpouring    
Sometimes they are mined
Sentences rough, needing cut
And like clay, needing molded
Lapidarist, a potter, a shepherd, a poet
Word are but a medium, a way to make art
And yet they’re the window to see straight to my heart

I was a queen, and I have lost my crown;
A wife, and I have broken all my vows;
A lover, and I ruined him I loved:--
There is no other havoc left to do.
A little month ago I was a queen,
And mothers held their babies up to see
When I came riding out of Camelot.
The women smiled, and all the world smiled too.
And now, what woman's eyes would smile on me?
I still am beautiful, and yet what child
Would think of me as some high, heaven-sent thing,
An angel, clad in gold and miniver?
The world would run from me, and yet am I
No different from the queen they used to love.
If water, flowing silver over stones,
Is forded, and beneath the horses' feet
Grows turbid suddenly, it clears again,
And men will drink it with no thought of harm.
Yet I am branded for a single fault.

I was the flower amid a toiling world,
Where people smiled to see one happy thing,
And they were proud and glad to raise me high;
They only asked that I should be right fair,
A little kind, and gowned wondrously,
And surely it were little praise to me
If I had pleased them well throughout my life.

I was a queen, the daughter of a king.
The crown was never heavy on my head,
It was my right, and was a part of me.
The women thought me proud, the men were kind,
And bowed right gallantly to kiss my hand,
And watched me as I passed them calmly by,
Along the halls I shall not tread again.
What if, to-night, I should revisit them?
The warders at the gates, the kitchen-maids,
The very beggars would stand off from me,
And I, their queen, would climb the stairs alone,
Pass through the banquet-hall, a loathed thing,
And seek my chambers for a hiding-place,
And I should find them but a sepulchre,
The very rushes rotted on the floors,
The fire in ashes on the freezing hearth.
I was a queen, and he who loved me best
Made me a woman for a night and day,
And now I go unqueened forevermore.
A queen should never dream on summer eves,
When hovering spells are heavy in the dusk:--
I think no night was ever quite so still,
So smoothly lit with red along the west,
So deeply hushed with quiet through and through.
And strangely clear, and deeply dyed with light,
The trees stood straight against a paling sky,
With Venus burning lamp-like in the west.

I walked alone amid a thousand flowers,
That drooped their heads and drowsed beneath the dew,
And all my thoughts were quieted to sleep.
Behind me, on the walk, I heard a step--
I did not know my heart could tell his tread,
I did not know I loved him till that hour.
Within my breast I felt a wild, sick pain,
The garden reeled a little, I was weak,
And quick he came behind me, caught my arms,
That ached beneath his touch; and then I swayed,
My head fell backward and I saw his face.

All this grows bitter that was once so sweet,
And many mouths must drain the dregs of it.
But none will pity me, nor pity him
Whom Love so lashed, and with such cruel thongs.

The path of life may not be straight
We may falter coming out of the gate
Questioning the path of  the twisted road
Left or right; up or down ; a precarious load
The ground can be   shaky, but you  are never alone
Guidance is there as you  step on each stone
Trust in its power and the love so profound  
As you softly tread on its  sacred ground

by Alison Johnstone

We couldn't sit and study for the law;
  The stagnation of a bank we couldn't stand;
For our riot blood was surging, and we didn't need much urging
To excitements and excesses that are banned.
So we took to wine and drink and other things,
  And the devil in us struggled to be free;
Till our friends rose up in wrath, and they pointed out the path,
And they paid our debts and packed us o'er the sea.

Oh, they shook us off and shipped us o'er the foam,
To the larger lands that lure a man to roam;
        And we took the chance they gave
        Of a far and foreign grave,
And we bade goodbye for evermore to home.

And some of us are climbing on the peak,
  And some of us are camping on the plain;
By pine and palm you'll find us, with never claim to bind us,
By track and trail you'll meet us once again.

We are fated serfs to freedom--sky and sea;
  We have failed where slummy cities overflow;
But the stranger ways of earth know our pride and know our worth,
And we go into the dark as fighters go.

Yes, we go into the night as brave men go,
Though our faces they be often streaked with woe;
        Yet we're hard as cats to kill,
        And our hearts are reckless still,
And we've danced with death a dozen times or so.

And you'll find us in Alaska after gold,
  And you'll find us herding cattle in the South.
We like strong drink and fun; and when the race is run,
  We often die with curses in our mouth.

We are wild as colts unbroke, but never mean;
  Of our sins we've shoulders broad to bear the blame;
But we'll never stay in town, and we'll never settle down,
  And we'll never have an object or an aim.

No, there's that in us that time can never tame;
And life will always seem a careless game;
        And they'd better far forget--
        Those who say they love us yet--
Forget, blot out with bitterness our name.