For the crew, I have to steer us through this.
The nor’easter came on so suddenly.
Clear, blue skies to grey violence
without a clear warning.
 
Day started with checking lobster traps.
A great haul for the day.
Smiles booming all around.
Sailing home would be effortless.
 
Now the crew are below,
can feel their worry
and cries with every rough wave.
We were not prepared for this.
 
Trying to see through the rain.
Thinking of our families,
the ones sitting at home,
staring out their windows
hoping to see their spouses
coming through the door.
 
Up here all I see is darkness
from the pellets of rain.
Direction is purely by instinct
in hopes of finding land,
to dock like any other day.
 
Tense and scared,
heart is pumping in my skin.
Know I do not have
a say in our fates.
It is either the ghost
from the water that will guide
or the unforgiving Nor’easter’s Hands.
 
September 22, 2020
©Andrew Scott – Just A Maritime Boy 2020

​The heart yearns for the simpler time.
An era where a smile between two
while walking, holding hands was love.
 
Words and thoughts have complicated
so much in each other's minds.
Over thinking actions by each other.
When during a simpler time.
what you did is what you meant.
 
Relationships are constantly questioned.
Mistrust seems to be the main feeling
due to people of the past with bad intentions.
There was a time when motives were transparent.
Those were the days of simpler times
when a hand was given for help.
 
The world is stressed and broken.
Air is full of anger and pretend
there was a time when
this did not exist or thought of.
A smile was natural and not forced.
That was a simpler time,
A time we all dream of.
 
January 9, 2020
© Andrew Scott - Just A Maritime Boy 2020
 

​My memories of him are divided
between the person here and now
from the way that he was before.
The multi-faces and lives of Little Ronnie.
 
Little Ronnie could light up the sky
with youthful curiosity
marked with a mischievous smile.
No rock would be unturned
to see what was there
and what would happen
when the unknown was felt.
 
Little Ronnie’s parents
would show up to everything
even when he did not
wish for them to be there
or when Little Ronnie
did not want to be there himself.
Support was always there.
 
Little Ronnie never went without.
He had a little of everything
however he had to earn it.
His parents saw to that
but Little Ronnie was the coolest.
 
Little Ronnie was the master
at keeping the attention
while he was either quiet
or plotting the irrational.
Any personally could appear
at any given trigger.
 
Little Ronnie was blessed
with a great work life
after college.
Getting the first opportunity
that seemed to be handed
to his open arms.
The envy of us all.
 
I went away for awhile.
What I saw when I came back.
The mind cannot register.
The eyes do not believe.
 
Little Ronnie was a shell
of the person I used to know.
The pristine hair, now long
to go with a patchy beard.
 
Little Ronnie
did still dress
with the latest fashions.
So crisp and clean
to cover the skeleton
that was underneath.
So very thin.
 
At twenty-sex, Little Ronnie
was living at home.
Know the plan was to live
with his high school sweetheart.
Heard she was nowhere to be found.
Rumour was his hyper behaviour
got worse and she got scared
then found him with two others.
A couple who wanted fun.
She was done at the sight.
 
With his lady gone
no one could or would
help with controlling his money.
Little Ronnie went through it
as fast as he earned it.
The finest clothes
and the cheapest street drugs.
 
It got worse for Little Ronnie
after an emotional outburst
at his workplace.
Another gentleman met his
hidden strength and wrath.
 
Without a job, the small place
where Little Ronnie did live
licked him out.
The whispers was that
the little apartment took
two months to fully fix.
Broken walls, soiled carpets.
 
Little Ronnie;s childhood home
was the only place that
would take him with the erractic mind.
The hope was to get him
back onto the proper drugs
to calm his mind and body.
 
Little Ronnie’s mother fought
everyday to bring him back
to be the boy we all knew.
 
We all wanted the old
Little Ronnie back with us
and still do.
The difference is shocking.
Sad as it may never happen
as you periodically saw
the mischievous smile
of Little Ronnie.
 
July 26, 2020
© Andrew Scott – Just A Maritime Boy 2020

​Cannot remember when I first heard it.
Do know I was young at the time.
That old train whistle and its allure.
 
Home was not the best for me.
Rules I was not prepared to follow.
One morning packed a knapsack
before dawn started walking the rails.
Found a still train and joined the cargo.
 
At every stop, jumped to another boxcar,
never really knowing what direction
that the old train would go.
Happy to see the landscape.
Take in the beautiful of all terrains.
 
The people I have met
have always been so nice.
Fellow train-hoppers like me.
They were looking for missed adventure
or running away or both.
Stories were freely shared
as the land went by.
 
Sometimes late at night
I wonder about the family
that I left behind.
Think to myself
if I turned out
the way my mother thought I would
or my glaring absence
frightened my father like I used too.
They have not heard of me
since I left them a note.
 
As time has gone by
there are not as many trains to ride
however I can always find one.
The people you see are less and less.
The rail-runners are a dying breed.
Have accepted my day will end out here.
I have lived how I wanted too.
Until that day
will go wherever the train whistle blows.
 
August 22, 2020
© Andrew Scott – Just A Maritime Boy 2020

​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