​All that is left of her is this grainy photo,
black and white, face barely visible.
Sad, after forty-three years, the only memory
or trace of her of her of the time spent on earth.
 
Miss Gracie just disappeared
from the lives of my parents
when she got on her old bike
and went to visit her Aunt and Uncle,
who just lived down the road.
 
This community was small,
mostly everyone knew every body.
It was nothing odd about to have kids
walking or biking up the road alone.
The elders always kept an eye out
with the exception of this one time.
 
Hours later all they found
was Miss Gracie’s bike laying
in a muddy, roadside ditch.
 
Every person in the village
was called and the search started,
farmer’s fields and woods scowered.
For weeks, someone was always searching.
Local radio kept pleading for tips.
There was a lot of people that saw nothing.
 
Not positive which one of my parents
gave up on finding Miss Gracie first.
For both of them it was decadees later.
Before then, every phone call
or door knock gave hope,
then hope would be taken away.
 
I was ten when Miss Gracie disappeared.
She was seven at the time.
Did not know how that moment
would define everything in our lives after.
I was never allowed to travel alone,
no neighbourhood kid was.
We were all home well before dark
and our parents knew where we were.
 
My kids have gone through the same.
Check in at home at all times.
Those rules never changed
under any circumstances.
 
My children may have resented me
however they were safe so I do not care.
Never once did I explain why.
felt like I did not have too.
There is an old, grainy photo
as a reminder for why.
 
July 10, 2019
© Andrew Scott – Just A Maritime Boy 2019

​The world is flying with dark wings today.
There is a harsh cloud covering us all
that is staining how we fly.
Journeys are being mislead in life.
 
Angers are colouring pure wings
to the colours of rage.
Peace and love are being
murdered and raped by ignorance.
 
We are not trying to see or feel
what is proper in flight.
Storms are being man-made
by all blind angels.
 
The grime needs to be washed away,
soiled presence to be cleansed
so we will feel the fresh winds.
You cannot take in openly
with dirty, dark wings.
 
April 12, 2019
© Andrew Scott – Just A Maritime Boy 2019

​Remember when at one time
this home and land was a paradise
for over ten years when a little visitor
graced me, her great-uncle and her great-aunt.
 
She came from a home full of hate,
driven by parents that could not
even take care of themselves.
All fueled by the easy temptations.
 
May be it was the blinders that I had
but I cannot give the time
that it started to change.
Our little paradise met a hole.
 
Our little gift got older,
found the city and its darkness.
Led from the freedom given
by finding her free mother,
Drugs, booze and anything else.
I did not want to know.
 
For a brief moment she came
back to her normal self
so I stopped watching as hard.
 
She was found drowned in Red River,
body found wrapped up in a bag,
life taken by another, older man.
A beast that walks free today.
 
So many questions and guilt.
The blind eyes that did not see
the world in the darkness.
Instead only seeing light
that was a mirage to the truth.
 
It has all crumbled, rotten.
The flourished that surrounded us once
now a dead, paradise lost.
 
March 15, 2019
© Andrew Scott - Just A Maritime Boy 2019

​The explosion just happened.
I did not even feel anything
until I woke up four days later,
laying in a hospital bed.
 
The nurses and doctors tried to explain
as they dressed and undressed bandages
on my hot face as to why I was there.
 
The steam from a pressured pipe
burned the face and neck
after bursting while I was
being our home's plumber.
This is what I was told.
I remember nothing of that day.
 
The healing took months
with the skin graphs
to cover the burned portions
or what could be covered.
 
My face has the scars.
Red, blistered scars with lines.
I will never be able to hide them.
Not from the people that stare
when I am seen without a hat and hoodie
that is constantly hiding the evidence.
 
My workplace gave me a walled office
so others would not stop looking and talking
or so no one would see customers flinching.
 
My house has gotten quieter
as my partner left months
after I walked back through the door.
Affection was hard for her to give.
The sadness in her face said everything.
Do not blame her for getting affection elsewhere.
 
I sit in the dark a lot now
most of the time hoodie still on.
It is a habit now.
Hiding this mutant from even myself.
 
October 19, 2018
© Andrew Scott - Just A Maritime Boy 2018

​The slaughter was everywhere,
grown warriors not moving.
Life and peaceful death, taken away.
 
The Ghosts of Verdun has been
building and screaming
since the mud rains of Spring.
 
Can hear the enemy marching,
boots echoing on roads
of skeletons of ours and their own.
Men that make up the mist
and fog surrounding us now.
The Ghosts of Verdun.
 
Seasons have changed
as the men have defended this land.
The blood in the soil
is the same colour
when from allies or enemies.
The screams are unified.
The Ghosts of Verdun.
 
Loved ones at home,
waiting for word of
loved ones still alive.
Staring into the night sky
knowing the real truth.
The stars are whispering
the voices of the Ghosts of Verdun.
 
January 27, 2019
© Andrew Scott - Just A Maritime Boy 2019

​The whistling wind changes
direction with each gust,
unpredictable with its temperature
as are the strings of life.
 
The unknown is the thrill
it brings with it.
A child like grin
as you stare at the beginning
being pulled by the strings of life.
 
Embracing whatever the results
is part of the feeling of living
may bring tears of emotion
for seeing, absorbing pain
or unexpected joy in the bones.
One never knows what will be felt
from  the tug of the strings of life.
 
December 26, 2018
© Andrew Scott - Just A Maritime Boy 2018

In Upper Derby, by Highway 8,
they found her, murdered,
hidden in a hockey bag,
shoved off to the side of the dirt road.
Found in horror by hunters,
Candace's life taken by an act of a madman
in the angry resting place
of the Graveyard Road.
 
A wooden area, just outside the city,
Sabrina lay to eternal sleep.
Life taken by an abuser that she knew.
Beaten and hidden to not be found
by those who loved and searched
through the trails and trees
shielding this Graveyard Road.
 
Hunters searching for their seasonal prey
off the roads in Mount Uniache
finds the remains of a missing man.
Daren lost for months, now found.
Life taken and then dumped
in the middle of no man's land
being absorbed in the Graveyard Road.
 
The souls are felt all around
the old lumber roads
where bodies have not been found.
Lost to their loved ones
looking for a form of closure
that may never be found,
buried in the Graveyard Road.
 
December 16, 2018
© Andrew Scott - Just A Maritime Boy 2018

​Another snowflake falls on my face.
The weather has changed fast again.
Seems like yesterday that the leaves were changing.
Barely ready for this though the old bones warned me
that the season's change was coming soon.
 
Keeping the body warm walking during the day.
Thankfully the boots are not too worn out.
Hand-me-downs from a hidden friend.
Same with my toque and coat.
I will never know who gave them.
Our neighbour from the community kitchen
brought them to our tents.
 
there are at least seven tents
lined in the semi-alley at all times.
Many others appear and disappear.
Those ones are not from here, travelers.
 
We are the ones here day-in, day-out.
Trying to winterize our little tents
with blankets found around the city.
A few here will take just to stay warm.
I Always think i will get caught
so I stay out collecting monies
to get cheap ones that barely cover me.
 
Getting spare change is hard.
Most times people walk by
with their heads turned the over way.
Believe most think I am drunk or stoned
and that is why I am living here.
I am not either, quite functional actually
except for the foreign voices I hear
that no one else does.
Jobs have been taken away
when I scream back at them.
 
Tonight they say it is getting colder.
I will never get used to it.
Trying to stay warm in this little tent,
worrying if we all will survive
when the snowflakes falls.
 
November 17, 2018
© Andrew Scott - Just A Maritime Boy 2018

​First heard about Lester three days ago.
The unexpected shock of his passing.
Most of us thought it would happen
years before with all the self-indulgence
but not now that he had survived that.
 
In Lester's young years temptation owned him.
It was simple cigarettes first
then came the drinks
he could not just say no too, ever.
Lester did not have a favourite.
 
Experimenting with harsher chemicals
came when he left high school
that Lester would never graduate from.
No one knows if he left or was asked to leave.
 
To all another lost, living life.
Wondering around,
becoming a young, self-abused fixture.
Walking roads in a circle
that lead to nowhere.
 
No one paid much attention to Lester.
He, like others, blended in as scenery
after folks stopped offering and giving help.
 
One day, all the sudden,
Lester appeared with washed, short hair,
working as a shelf stocker at a department store.
The shakes were there but he looked good.
Shaven, clean with clear eyes.
 
Word got out about Lester's turn around
after community trust was given
from all the previous attempts to help.
The sky for rebuilding was the limit.
 
A few years after the struggle of rebuilding
Lester me his four year-old daughter
from a night of numbness.
He welcomed her with open arms.
Lester's smile with life was everlasting.
Until last week, at Lester's new peak,
he was walking from a corner store
when he was hit by a speeding car.
The driver missed the lights to stop.
 
All the changes and potential to come
that we are never to see,
gone with the lost life of Lester.
 
November 7, 2018
© Andrew Scott - Just A Maritime Boy 2018

​Watching From A Star
 
I wonder as I sit here
and look at the dark, clear sky
are you watching from one of those stars?
Seeing all the turns and ups and downs.
 
Were you there when I gambled
with a life decision and lost everything
that had been built through the years.
The moments of struggle to get it all back,
where giving up would have been easy.
Strength was so hard to find then.
 
Wonder if you were watching a new life
where success and failure went hand in hand.
There were times the smile was taken
and thoughts of leaving to be a person
that I was many years ago seemed easier.
 
So many times through the years
I have spoken to you for strength
without a guiding word in return,
leaving me without direction.
 
Would you have stepped in
if it looked like I was going
to a place I should not have?
 
Those times of confusion
were not so long ago
however I am at peace now
with the turns taken,
new relationships built,
the love given.
 
I cannot help as I stare at the sky
but wonder if you would have been proud
at what you may have seen
if you were watching from the brightest star.
 
July 4, 2018
© Andrew Scott - Just A Maritime Boy 2018