Streve nash
Pieces of four – A Shanty for Skull & Crossbones Bridge, Chesterfield 19th May 2013
‘a merry life and a short one, that’s my motto.’
(Bartholomew ‘Black Bart’ Roberts, 1722)
We aweigh and set sail in the good ship Micra
barely a breath after dark,
to make merry only, no plunder in mind,
plotting our course by the stars.
Pay heed O’ Cap’n to the ominous wind,
black sails be abroad tonight.
Rum-fuelled blaggards veiled in mist
be ever-prepared for a fight.
Their galley a prize, skulls hung from the mizzen,
their hull sleek; ocean-stropped.
Scarcely a contest against our humble barque,
they loom sudden out of the fog.
An impact to shake the old gods from the locker,
we collide flush bow to bow.
Our flow arrested, our shanties replaced
with splintering figurehead and bone.
We drift in the midden of blood thick as sailcloth,
fathomless screams herald our final scene:
witness two vessels ruined, four fighting to breathe,
and the horizon drinking the sea.
- For my fellow crew mates: Fliss, Rob, and Toni who lived to plunder
another day.
06