​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

​Mike exhales smoke from his forth cigarette,
staring to the cloudy, starred sky,
trying to figure out where to go,
what steps to take forward.
Every goal and dream now changed
by a night up at the North Creek.
 
Marie wipes away a tear from her face.
She has checked the news twice
to make sure her life was changing.
She is scared on how
her mom and dad will look at her.
Their baby will change in their eyes
by a night up at the North Creek.
 
Mike’s school plans for college
are on hold in his mind.
Will have to stay in town
to be a responsible man
after a night up at the North Creek.
 
Marie thinks of how
she will finish high school
as she grows and plans
about being brought into motherhood
from a night up at the North Creek.
 
Mike and Marie do not know
where their next turn is
or even how to get there.
Their adult fantasies
are changed forever.
 
Two kids that did not
even know one another
before a night of acting like adults
one night up at the North Creek.
 
December 25, 2017
© Andrew Scott – Just A Maritime Boy 2017

​Looking around this downtown street,
sipping a coffee, watching the people go by.
The hustle and bustle will never change
where other things down here have
blending with the scenery that stays the same.
 
At the end of the street, the construction is constant.
Same place every year for the past seven years.
It is always street work by the same crew.
At least they know where they are working.
Would not want to be them in this heat,
the boots and work clothes adding to their tired
but nothing seems to stop them
or the constant hum of drilling into the ground.
They have been here so long
I am not sure if they even know
what they are fixing anymore.
 
Lighting a cigarette, I cannot help
but look for a store that is no longer there,
Now it is an apartment building
with businesses on the main floor.
Years ago it was not that.
It was three, old brick buildings.
A cafe of eastern cuisine,
a travel agency to faraway places
and a beloved general store
that when we were kids, they sold cheap
penny candies, quarter cigarettes
before the laws changed about buying at a certain age.
Cannot help but wonder if our stealing
when their eyes were closed helped get it tore down.
 
Grinning I look over to the mass bus depot
that has not changed as long as I remember.
It still has a spooky, dirty feel to it.
The same aura that was there when I was a kid.
Looking back and forth I see some of
the same people that have been taking
the noisy vehicles for years.
It is a comfort to them and that does not change.
 
The coffee is finished and it is time to leave
a cafe that I will not see again.
It closes this weekend with little fanfare.
A reminder that though something's stay the same
in time places constantly change
on this busy downtown street.
 
August 24, 2018
© Andrew Scott - Just A Maritime Boy 2018

​This quiet little town
has become the center of upheaval
and confusion as of late.
It was so quiet when I got here.
People were so neighbourly,
waving to you as a complete stranger.
Now everyone has suspicious eyes
as you hear the click of a door lock.
 
It started a few months back
during the winter thaw
when Adam was found,
frozen in the wooden border
so close to his home,
His eyes were frozen open they say.
The bruised marks on his neck
told the rest of the story.
Found by a beaten path
to the neighbour’s home.
The path used  for visits
no one was to know about
including the husband
or Adam’s wife.
 
The community was at a loss
when Stephen was found on his porch,
throat open with just one strike.
The discovery was grotesque, so much blood
splashed all over his leisurely swing.
While people took in the horror
of one of their own meeting a violent end
not many saw the youth of today
walking up Stephen’s outside steps
to buy the day’s coloured pills.
 
Finding Esther off the wooden path
sent waves of fright through the town.
Not even the walking trails in the open
were safe for the citizens
as find Esther has proven.
Never spoken of are the lined pockets
of money that were with the body.
Bills from places of business
that were struggling to keep the lights on.
 
How do I know all of this you ask?
I may have been the dark figure
walking unnoticed in the shadow of the night,
making visits in the Murder Town.
 
August 8, 2018
© Andrew Scott – Just A Maritime Boy 2018

​Sorry Momma, this may be the last time you hear from me.
Something happened while walking home
that I cannot change, even if I tried.
 
I was strolling around
just as the sun was going down
through one of the parts of town
you always told us to stay away from
but it was the shortest way home
and I was exhausted after a hot day.
 
Could feel the eyes on me from the homes.
They were measuring a stranger.
I could sense the whispers.
 
The air changed, so confusing.
It could have been the tension
that was turning in me.
The events are so vague
in my mind, no real memory
of what sent me walking
on the new path I must take.
A new place where I cannot look back.
 
Do not know what the future holds,
do know that I will always be moving
so the past cannot get a hold of me.
Though that would be deserved
with what I know I did.
 
Sorry Momma, you had to hear this way
that your lessons should have
been completely listened too.
That is the truth.
I will now remember them
as I can never walk home.
 
July 27, 2018
© Andrew Scott - Just A Maritime Boy 2018

​Should have trusted the feeling.
The one that gave the real truth
with only the changing air
as evidence of wrong doing.
 
Denial was in my mind.
No person with years of trust
would cut for the blood
of a person that was like a brother.
That is what my mind would say.
Was so completely wrong.
 
Question the reasons that made him change.
Was it envy, jealousy of fortune
that was earned through work?
Nothing is given in this jaded world.
 
I may never tell what I know
to the last blood brother.
Will have an open weary eye
and try a slow forgiveness
from feeling the strike of a Betrayer's Sword.
 
June 24, 2018
© Andrew Scott - Just A Maritime Boy 2018

​Am appealing to your gentle side
as your strikes to the living
are creating anger and outrage
to those of us amongst the living.
 
Not positive of what you are
attempting to do with your efforts
but to bring u loss and sorrow.
 
Your victims are so young
and full of potential.
The bricks of our future
crumbled to blowing dust.
 
The lessons you are trying to teach
have been now engrained.
Fear who may be next
at an unexpected time.
 
The power and sorrow
that you yield is intense.
You are taking pieces of us all
as your venom is dealt.
We appeal to you, Goddess of Death.
Let us heal.
 
February 19, 2018
© Andrew Scott - Just A Maritime Boy 2018

​Could feel the eyes staring at me
through the tattered windows
of the beat up homes
as I walked the rotted road
that held this Shantytown
built on the outskirts of a tourist town.
 
It was like walking through
a deserted ghost town
with all the quiet air
that was filling the sky.
 
I came here to learn
of my family beginning
as this was where
my ancestors lived
and raised their own.
 
Would not be here out of curiosity
if my own family
would speak of their home
however when questions are asked,
all members lips tighten.
 
As I walk along this stretch
I see beaten, old homes
that the weather has not been kind to.
 
Off to the right is a swampland
I have overheard other call the Bog.
I can see the tops of torn tents
where I heard folks of another colour
may have been exiled too.
I was hoping that was not true
but I can see where it may have been.
 
Realize I may never fully know
about the folklore feel about this place.
The doors to those times
may never be open to me.
The ground I walk on, it seems,
will never let me know
as more doors creak close,
the hidden secrets of this Shantytown.
 
April 9, 2018
© Andrew Scott – Just A Maritime Boy 2018