​The sky is screaming angry.
The winds are swirling blindly
in the dark with a purpose.
 
Spirits are looking over the world
from just over the edge.
Bodies are afriad to step over.
Chaos voices holding back all.
 
Standing in the middle of the storm
I am pretending to be full of strength
eventhough people’s screams of pain
are making myself so weak.
 
Humans have stopped being civil.
Killing each other from a slight.
Peace is not on the horizon.
Fires are still burning,
Spreading from person to person.
 
Voices of peace not being heard.
Civility has been extinguished.
Concern that sensibility
will never come back.
 
Enough has become enough.
The sky is clashing angrily
and my soul is afraid.
 
September 1, 2020
© Andrew Scott – Just A Maritime Boy 2020

Centuries ago, many walked this road,
slaves seeking freedom from the chains
of their abusive owners.
 
You can feel the ghosts
of the men and women
that wished to not be owned
in the soil of the Freedom Road.
 
Their prayers with every step,
taken during the dead of night.
Constantly fearing being found
in the escape of the captive life.
Their sweat of fear paved the Freedom Road.
 
Encoding symbols like a puzzle
to arrive home to home.
Hoping the persons could be trusted
for food and rest
before continuing the journey
through the Freedom Road.
 
The pain is endured
by being cramped
from walking at night,
hauled in a boat.
Taken away by the feel
of the glowing Promise Land
paved by the freedom Road.
 
July 20, 2020
© Andrew Scott – Just A Maritime Boy 2020

​From a faraway distance
know you can see
all that is out of control
in the air around the world
that is pulling at the seams.
 
People are locked away,
worried about their loved ones
feeling alone and scared.
Isolation is playing
with the thoughts of the mind.
It is never-ending, the alone.
 
Tempers are starting to flare,
rage is taking over.
The wind is spreading the fire,
people are hurting,
sharing the pain with others.
 
Know you are watching,
the destruction is growing,
wounds me be beyond healing.
 
You are the Angel of Healing
yet are letting all bleed out.
So much sorrow
lining the skin of faces.
Scars to be felt for years
yet from a distance
you are sitting, watching.
 
June 14, 2020
©Andrew Scott - Just A Maritime Boy 2020

​This tunnel seems to go on forever
completely dark in this passageway
the brick walls are wet with slime
giving the feeling of dampness
that runs through the body
 
Have never felt so alone
with every indecisive step taken
no one ever takes the same steps
as each tunnel is different
 
At times, wish for company
to share the experienced fear
in where this hole leads
 
Hold on to all hope
that past spirits will guide
as I cannot see, only feel
the cracks that are stepped in
 
Breath and believe
that there will be
a tinker of light
in this life's tunnel
 
July 11, 2020
© Andrew Scott - Just A Maritime Boy 2020

In the midst of fear and chaos
there can be a new light of hope.
Though there is a fast disease
that has taken over all of us
in this land of violent confusion.
 
People marching the streets.
Peacefully protesting hate
and the injustice that is brought
to the people of the minority
that have been unjustly killed.
Tragic ends to innocent lives.
The marchers speak on the behalf
of the victims that cannot.
 
Indigenous people are missing
or found floating in rivers.
The powers that are in charge
would not move from their desks.
Treating the victims
as pieces of paper not humans
until the remaining people
screamed out for an investigation
to why no one pretended to care.
 
Country under a Communist reign,
leaving its citizens poor and weak.
Living in places that are falling apart.
Screams and marches of the people
wanting a wall to fall
so the outside world could come in.
Freedom given to the people.
 
For centuries voices have cried
and fought for a new life
for people who could not.
Everyday their hands are out
for the deserved help of others.
Someday there will not be a need
of these voices
in hope these times will change.
 
May 30, 2020
©Andrew Scott - Just A Maritime Boy 2020

​Susan wakes up everday
as soon as the sunrises,
packing her vehicle
with pastries and hot coffee
to take to her uptown core.
She drops them off at a make-shift shelter
for ladies trying to start over again.
Susan remembers when she was there,
leaving a place of abuse
and the strength to look forward
with a small gesture and a smile.
A gentile gift of hope.
 
Gilbert wakes every Saturday morning,
packs a guitar in the back of his car.
Stops for water and coffee,
pays for the people behind him
without saying a word to the receivers.
Gilbert then goes to a senior's complex
where some are not even able
to get up to leave their room.
He brings out his guitar
and plays for hours.
Smiling back at the grinning faces
that are looking back through windows
as Gilbert sings his gift of hope.
 
Each work day, Jessica prepares.
Puts on her nursing scrubs
and when she gets to the hospital,
a mask, head dress and gloves
to give comfort to those
that are sick, alone and scared.
Jessica goes from room to room
with kind words and smile
knowing that she amy also get sick.
She fights that feeling each work day
as Jessica spreads the gift of hope.
 
Through gestures of the unselfish and caring,
good spirits are spread in the air.
Going from person to person
who pass it on to the next.
Filling the human race
with the gift of hope.
 
May 14, 2020
©Andrew Scott - Just A Maritime Boy 2020

​Been sitting here in quarantine
for what seem to be an endless time.
Stowed away from a running virus,
staring out the window,
taking in the surrounding quiet,
wondering what it will be like
when the spreading is over.
Will everything be better or worse?
 
Know a body was found dead,
laying in the open, beaten.
A city center park, the resting place.
 
In another place, just a few hours away
victims play at peace
from the rampage of a man
that everyone knew
but cannot tell you
why his mind turned mad,
taking away family members of others.
 
People are starting at each other
while in the lines of impatience.
Tempers are flaring
for the wrong reasons.
 
A man lay in critical condition
after being purposely run over
in a shopping center parking lot.
Frustration of being asked to wait in line
drove the man to
almost take the life of another.
 
Gangs of anger
are lining the streets,
armed with chants and guns.
Screaming for everything
to be re-opened
even if it spreads a virus
and more fellow citizens
are laid to rest.
 
The stir crazy has hit
certain people globally,
showing the worst in people.
 
As I look out the window
and watch the madness,
figure when this is all over
will stay sheltered away.
 
April 19, 2020
Andrew Scott - Just A Maritime Boy 2020

​People out there say I passed
many years ago.
I cannot disagree with them.
Feel lifeless, full of nightmares.
 
I stay awake when I can,
struggling with emotions
of the horrors of yesteryear.
 
When I do sleep
it is in small increments.
The shakes wake me up.
 
I stay in this house
so people do not see
me in the condition I am.
 
Thankfully people stay away.
No townsfolk want to come
to a house that looks older
that what it is.
The overgrown, weedy lawn
assist with this.
 
I was not always like this.
How I got to where I am
is a strange journey
that more than one have taken.
 

 
I was eighteen years old.
The age I could have a license
however could not go to a pub.
 
High school had just finished for me.
Did not know what to do next.
Working at our local lumber mill
was not an option
that I wanted to explore
even though my father
and his father worked there.
It was not for me.
 
While some started there
right out of high school
I drifted without options.
My father was angered
over what he called my laziness.
 
I saw an office to enlist
after another household fight.
Saw it as my way out
hopefully to never come back
to this corner of New Brunswick.
Little did I know.
 

 
The time in training at Pennfield Ridge
was nothing to prepare us or me
for what was seen when we landed
in the battle worn, North France.
 
We were preparing for Vimmy Ridge.
It was March, 1917.
Our Corps were to raid trenches
to gain on the enemy before the main fight.
 
The battle in the trenches against the Germans
was an aggressive, bloody affair
with so many dead and injured
for both allies and enemies.
 
It was my fourth trench raid,
We did not surprise the enemy,
blood was everywhere.
The confusion and screaming,
bullets and bodies,
then nothing.
 

 
I woke up in a bed,
some hospital somewhere.
Through blurred vision
I saw the lines of beds
littered with bodies.
Men crying, stained blood covers.
 
My pain felt so intense.
did not know what was causing it
until I went to wipe my eyes.
My right hand was gone,
missing up to half my forearm.
The scream that came out of me.
 
I was there for a little over a month
then I got papers to go home.
The one place I longed for.
 

 
A hero’s welcome is what I got
when I finally arrived home.
A meal that only a mother could make,
pride in my father’s eyes.
 
The nightmares started after that.
I would say just a few weeks later.
Screams that would wake everyone.
The trenches being replayed
in black and white.
Cannot even explain the pain
in a hand that was not there.
 

 
Several decades later
I am what you would call a recluse.
Stopped socializing shortly after I got home.
Could not deal with the stares.
 
Most of the townsfolk have left
that would truly remember me.
The new people leave me alone.
Like it that way.
 
Part of me is still in that trench.
Sometimes I wish the rest of me
was buried there too.
The person I was
died that day.
Now I wait for the remainder
to do the same.
 
April 29, 2020
©Andrew Scott – Just a Maritime Boy 2020
 

​Know that inside you are hurting
the mind is clouded and confused
everything is making you feel alone
searching for answers as to why
without a clear tunnel to go
 
There are people out everywhere
feeling the same conflicted emotions
that is hitting you and your heart
 
As we walk through this with each other
breathe in, taste how precious it all is
there is a new sky every day
look up, it is beautiful
even when the look is grey
 
Take a hand, hold it together
all of us, as one, so we all can see
feel the strength of us, lifting
can walk along, struggle by struggle
overcoming all as we are stronger together
 
April 28, 2020
©Andrew Scott - Just a Maritime Boy 2020

​We are in this together
to pick up the weakened
heal them with strength
so all can be built again
 
Boundaries have been brought down
loss has affected everyone
in our global neighbourhood
nationally or race
does not stop pain
each person feels it.
 
Holding hands across the land
with unspoken kindness
will provide the courage
to face all without fear
as one body, together.
 
April 20, 2020
@Andrew Scott – Just a Maritime Boy