​If I knew what I have learnt
through a little touch of grey
when I was young and innocent,
not sure that the paths taken
would be travelled if I knew.
 
The blindness of wild youth.
Feeling invincible at every corner
whether it is slippery or dry.
The same approach was used.
 
The looking back at what
may have happened to self
or what did actually happen.
The experiences with a grin.
 
The face is a little worn due to it
and the scars are tried and true
however it is all worn proudly
as not a thing should or would be changed.
Only now it is decorated
with a growing, little touch of grey
 
May 6, 2018
© Andrew Scott - Just A Maritime Boy 2018

​Adam wheels into his home,
a new man from the last time
he walked through the door.
Today, Adam wheels through.
 
One night in a fire building,
a collapse changed everything.
A leg trapped, burned, crushed
under the weight of the fallen walls.
 
The wheeling into a room,
dazed with no memory
of how the toes you feel
are not visible anymore.
 
Seeing what was not there
created a panic
that lasted months
when Adam was awake
or remembering in his sleep.
 
The pain that led Adam
to the new doorstep,
built so is chair could fit.
The ramps and wooden paths
do not go everywhere
but the family did try to make it right.
 
The wooden paths blocked
his daughter's bouncy trampoline
from being put up again.
More of their playground, gone.
 
Adam's wife wakes from his nightmares.
Adding to all the changes
around the home.
A chair elevator that blocks the stairs
until Adam gets an artificial leg,
that will add to the challenges.
 
Adam's home and everyone is happy
though hiding the struggles
of adjusting to a new life
in a place and time
that may never be Adam's home.
 
January 17, 2018
© Andrew Scott - Just A Maritime Boy 2018

​I was there when the officials arrived
to tell my sister and her husband
about finding Nephew Pete dead
at the hands of his own.
 
It happened on a Sunday.
A day we were expecting him.
Nephew Pete had just gotten
paroled the Wednesday before.
 
Nephew Pete had been in
the cement walls of a cell
for a little over nine years.
 
I was his third offence
at being caught stealing
and the first time with a brutal assault. 
 
Nephew Pete had habits to feed
that got worse over time.
Stolen money was the only way.
 
He got cleaned up while inside.
Not like there was a choice
but over time Nephew Pete
became treated as important.
He knew how to get things
so others left him alone
and did not abuse him.
 
The story was he got lost
as soon as he got out.
Neighbours heard the nightmare
from the small room
he was set up in.
 
As he walked the streets for work,
Nephew Pete found out
he was not important in the city.
 
It only took a few days
of a new life to show
Nephew Pete that he did not
like the outside
and needed it to end
from the inside.
 
April 8, 2018
© Andrew Scott - Just A Maritime Boy 2018

​Seems the day is crumbling
before the sunrise even starts
and the motivational coffee is brewed.
Smiling perseverance to hold the glow
of believing in the kind goodness.
 
Walking to a destination
not sure now of arrival
due to unexpected barricades
that may end it all.
Chipper steps need to be taken
to sit comfortably
and breath in the air of delight.
 
Being led down a road
by other's greedy agendas
just to make a living
where family exists
not knowing when it may
seize to being.
 
The worries of the home
collapsing from the hidden
lives of the unpredictable young.
Still there is love
in the hugs and kisses good night.
 
As we lay in bed after
and go to sleep at the
end of each peaceful night
we dream in celebration
as another day was survived.
 
March 25, 2018
© Andrew Scott - Just A Maritime Boy 2018

Came across the blue, four door
in a parking garage on the east side.
The bottom was starting to rust out
and a grime dirt covered the rest.
 
The car looked like it had been there
for many seasons, good and bad.
 
The back right window was broken.
The parking garage sheltered the elements
from getting through the window.
 
Inside I saw a battered bag
with a bit of clothes sticking out.
A sleeping bag covered in worn dirt
in a cluttered back seat.
 
Empty cans and torn food bags
littered the front of the car,
decorated with tipped over cups.
 
the realization that this car
was someone's home came over me
and through a broken window
their every day life was being told.
 
Walking away, I thought to self
I had invaded a person at their weakest
and took their struggles fore granted.
 
Humbling life lesson learned
though and unrepairable, broken window.
 
January 24, 2018
© Andrew Scott - Just A Maritime Boy 2018

​I am that dark figure
standing alone on the outside,
watching the people tear it down,
burning all they have built.
Turning back the human race
to the savage time of centuries ago.
 
I was there in 1969
when the Irish city of Belfast
turned into a destructive time.
Filled with the heart of violence
the healing never happened,
leading to anger and hate
that filled the ever-hanging cloud
for decades of bombings and killings.
 
In the Canadian city of Oka,
I stood on the land
that was being protected
by the Indigenous Mohawk tribe
and the boys in blue
and the boys in camouflage green.
Guiding the aimed bullets of pain
to the one symbol of no tomorrow
that was added to the burial ground.
 
As the National Guard
lined up in Kent State
to silence the war protesting
voices echoing in Ohio.
I sat perched nearby
about to change life in the seventies.
The guns were to be fired overhead,
the aim off, killing four
but taking so much more.
 
I was there for it all.
Pulling the strings of destruction,
adding to the screams of the land
over the mist of decay and fire.
I linger and go to the next town
to leave my mark unseen.
No one sees this angel
and no one ever will.
 
January 15, 2018
© Andrew Scott - Just A Maritime Boy 2018

​This animal can feel it brewing
it is almost time for hoarding
A harsh winter is coming
 
so this body will not fear starving
food is a must during the sheltering
This animal can feel it brewing
 
Have to slow the breathing
turn off the busy mind’s thinking
A harsh winter is coming
 
how long the change will be is depending
on the air and what it is hiding
This animal can feel it brewing
 
there will be pillaging
for the supplies for sleeping
A harsh winter is coming
 
to get for all that is needed for surviving
during the lost months of hibernating
This animal can feel it brewing
A harsh winter is coming
 
September 21, 2017
© Andrew Scott – Just A Maritime Boy 2017 

​They are piling up, row by row,
in the lost, confused people’s hearts.
The cold bodies that will never be warm.
 
Missing people, mysteriously disappeared
without a trail of when or where.
 
Families went looking all alone.
Minorities that no one else
seemed to care about
as desperation combed
dirty streets and thick woods.
 
People of power stayed away,
filing the missing persons
in a random, crumbled paper pile.
Not helping ones they deemed
less deserving than others for help.
 
Wet, soiled grounds absorbing
the unfound dead, cold bodies
while mothers and fathers feel helpless
waiting for news they will never receive.
 
December 4, 2017
© Andrew Scott – Just A Maritime Boy 2017 

​Mrs. Smith looks out the kitchen window,
watching the coloured fall leaves dance
as they gently touch the ground.
She wishes that she had the dancing
partner in the wind as they do.
 
Life has turned lonely
as the years have passed by.
 
The husband is home every night,
sitting in a faded, recliner chair,
not saying a word or grunt.
Eyes glued to a television set,
hand glued to the control.
 
He never notices when
Mrs. Smith has dressed up nice.
Subtle rose make up
and not a hair out of place.
An outfit that fits in all the right places.
He never blinks an eyes,
never sees the tears
going down an unloved cheek.
 
Mrs. Smith walks around
seeing others holding loving hands
and sharing affectionate smiles.
Ones she has not seen
or felt in a long time.
 
Love gone so long ago,
the passion replaced with comfort.
Not knowing any other life.
 
Mrs. Smith does not wish
to give up on love or romance.
 
Mrs. Smith see the clearing
out a window into the unknown.
Bags packed, searching for the one
that will kiss and hold
while sharing Mrs. Smith’s Dance.
December 5, 2017
© Andrew Scott – Just A Maritime Boy 2017 

​For a brief moment in time,
he came to me as a traveling stranger
while I was sitting on a bus bench
staring off to the space before me
waiting for the next destination in my life.
 
I was not looking for a chat with anyone
while staring off and waiting.
A nudge struck the bottom of my arm
until I looked up to see the intruding source.
 
The traveling stranger's face looked like it had seen
so many different roads that were lined
on his hardened, tanned, beaten skin.
It was a warm face as he spoke to me
while he was looking towards the dirt ground.
 
His voice gave a little away of his age
when he whispered a mumble
that my ears could barely hear.
 
The traveling stranger smiled as he
recounted the steps that brought him
to the present day bench
where he was sitting now.
 
His life was at a crossroads
on a cloudy day such as this one.
The little wind blowing was
the direction that he had chosen to go.
The irony was the wind was blowing
the same direction for me that day.
 
He finally said that he was sixty-seven
and that he had seen half of this great world.
The sadness and madness of people.
It was the pockets of kindness that kept his spirit
and that glimmer kept him content.
 
The stranger started traveling the roads
twenty-one years ago, my age now.
He had worked and cared for his family
until the day a change was needed.
His child was old enough to move away
and the lady in his life disappeared.
So the search for living and change began.
 
His clothes looked the days had been hard.
A frayed jean jacket that was once blue,
jeans that matched with seasoned grit.
 
I put my head down to think of what he said
as I was at my own crossroads.
Trapped was how it all felt to me.
 
The winds were telling me north,
to be off the bench and walk
in order to get things straight
though I had nothing with me,
just what I had now.
 
By the time I lifted my head
to start to walk north to start over,
my traveling stranger was already gone.
 
October 17, 2017
© Andrew Scott - Just A Maritime Boy 2017