©1999, Scott Ainslie

I’m gonna blow off the top of this mountain
And fill up the valley below.
Before we get done, the dust will block out the sun
And we’ll peel back the layers of coal. Continue Reading

©1997, Scott Ainslie. All rights
reserved.

I found you burying your face, like a boy who cries:
Ragdoll legs and broken arms, one shoe off and one shoe on.
Rain trickles inside the collar: Yellow slicker, 3:00 a.m.
Silent, skewed and thickening—-I touch your shadow with my hand. Continue Reading

©1997, Scott Ainslie.
All rights reserved.

We picked you up at your house.
Bound your wrists, taped your mouth.
Used our hands and our clubs.
You weren’t human to us.

We drove home and kissed our wives;
Sang our children lullabies
Joked with our parents on the phone.
When we went to our cars, we went alone.

Continue Reading

©2000, Scott Ainslie

I thought I felt a little cool breeze come through.
What shall we do? Don’t it feel cold in here to you?
Turn up the heat, warm up your feet.
Turn on the light. Nothing seems right. Continue Reading

( Scott Ainslie)

Well, the whole town’s in an uproar, all up and down the street;
I owe everybody, but nobody owes me!
I’m gonna start with the very next person I meet:
Next time you see me there ain’t no tellin’ who I’ll be. Continue Reading

©1997, Scott Ainslie

Push me to the ground, Try and keep me down
I’m gonna get up!
Treat me like a slave, Put me in my grave,
I’m gonna get up!
Throw me into jail, With no money for my bail
I’m gonna get up!
You know you’re bound to die, When you come into this life,
You gotta get up. Continue Reading

lyrics by Scott
Ainslie ©2003,
music by Al Pettaway ©2001

I will not fall.
I will never fall again.
I will stand on the bridge rail
And jump in the wind. Continue Reading

©2004, Scott Ainslie

Uncommon life: uncommon love.
Uncommon life: uncommon love.

Can we believe – in a foreign land
Where we’ll dance again and again and again:
Eye to eye, hand to hand;
We touch this flame. Continue Reading

Scott Ainslie

When I lived down on Smokey Row,
I kept my dreams between the cotton rows.
Those fields my books, where I wrote with my hoe.
When I lived – when I lived – down on Smokey Row. Continue Reading