Pirates’ Alley: Deep Treasure, High Seas
So it seems romantic,
When pirates craved doubloons,
When Vikings followed courses determined by the runes;
Now the gold is black and prophesy as well,
That dreaded skull and crossbones, now a scallop shell.
Those mystic four directions that compassed to connect
Reduce to four gas stations on streets that intersect.
Figureheads of thrust once forging to adventure
Now are fixed utilities on platforms of indenture.
So it seems romantic,
To say of Captain Hook,
A gaudy rogue of myth he was but never was a crook.
What privateers of our times – terrorists without a flag?
Or the everyone everywhere on a guzzling jag?
So it seems romantic,
Greed as noble sport,
Buccaneers who took the seas, not leaving honor’s port.
Perhaps years from now – many bells –
When others read our story,
They will say,
“So it seems romantic,”
That boon of muckish glory.
And perhaps that is it – the deepest treasure of all:
A legacy of highest tides that actually were a fall.
Always profit at the time,
Always much to show;
Once retrospect becomes the fortune
Where does burn-off go?
Flying Dutchmen in every era and always forms of oil;
We drill our graves in many ways and always call them roil.
– Mary Jo Magar –