Blackbeard

Dark as debt
and twice as nasty.
Heavy as a Cornish pasty.
Fat as butter.
Mean as skin
and evil as a grin.

Blackbeard he, the pirate king.
A lord of ill and
Morgans bane.
A force of will and world afeared.
For every sailor live or dead,
and every child within his bed,
and every shark and every salty fish
both far and near,
from here and back,
all know the fear from he
with beard of black.

Know this tale of grave adventure
and of sea and ship and sail.
Know this story great and small,
for it is a tale for all.

On his ship the pirate stood
in day of shallow rain were caught.
Sails and God and wind were waiting.
Motion all abating as the pirate captain thought.

"Load it up!"
The captain roared and men and rats
were shocked to move.
The heavy chest of rust and oak
a carried loft by burly folk
was lifted high and swung on rope
and lowered on the deck.

Then Blackbeard fixed upon the lock
withdrew a blade about his side,
his scimitar, he named it "bride"
and in the casket lock he pryed.

A prick and
crick and
punch and 'click'.

The pirate smiled,
anticipation.
"My treasure mine is back once more.
My gold upon my cabin door.
No more alone,
my family more is home."

And slowly with a creak like torture,
slowly as a coffin lid,
eyes were fixed on the armada
as the top asunder slid.

A silence.

Breaths were stopped,
and blinks.
Even clouds withheld their winks.
Inside the heavy chest now open
upon the deck upon the ship,
no gold, no silver coins just lead.
Some body would end up dead.

Faster than a revolution
he snapped.
Lightning cracked,
and in a tower he stood
full ten feet tall.
Solid as a wall of terror
and deadly as a storm.

Like a whip his right hand flew.
His rage still grew and power raw,
in merciless awe encased the fist.

Slam!
A wreck and splinters flew
a million sparks unlit and dead
enfilled the ship and filled the deck.
A cloud of wood hung in the air,
no silver lining there.

© Mark Sheeky. Permission is required for reproduction.