Luca Messina
Contributor
You’ve worn the crown upon your head
Stared through the lives of the many
And spit the bare faced lies you said
In hopes we wouldn’t mutiny.
We’re all good pirates: to raze,
To pillage the soil and take,
Burn it all and warm our feeble
Bones by the blaze.
Oh, feed us our daily rum
Squeezed from only the freshest
Of high-fructose corn syrups
“Now with real rum concentrate.”
Below the deck in sorrow,
Through tight-lipped frowns we swallow
The poisons of the captain’s rations.
But some day you will walk
The plank itself gilded with gold
For your retirement under the palms
Of virgin beaches on the islands.
We know the game:
Only the cruelest peg-legs
keep their doubloons.
Just imagine it now sailors,
The crown falling overboard,
Swashbucklers no more.
We will sing, our freedom an ode
To the end of the gore.
We’ll be handed the reigns
Of this unsavable shit
Reveling in joy
From our plastic ship.