I stand by my statement earlier.

That it would hurt the victims.

 

Now, let me talk about the accused.

 

If in every trial,

The accused were to have their victims present,

It would be far less likely for justice to be executed.

 

Everyone takes every affront personally.

Every bad thing done to us

Is a crime much worse

That it possibly is.

 

This is why justice needs administered

Without the bias.

If someone is truly hurt

They will pursue their rights

Already afforded.

 

I’m afraid that there is a reason this needs to be addressed

Is that many of us don’t consider ever getting in trouble

Until it actually happens.

Perhaps we had a bag of Cocaine

Perhaps we were driving too fast

And caused a fatal or harmful accident;

Perhaps we were falsely accused

Or were rightly guilty of a crime

Much less severe than society deems it.

 

We need a fair court proceeding

In the part of both victims and the accused.

The truth is;—and here is the truth;—

We need mercy.

 

Dostoevsky, as noted to me by a friend

Saw that a man committed a theft

And the preacher set him free.

It set that man on a course for becoming a good man

And rather than throw him in prison

The man was forgiven.

 

Regardless, there are dangerous people

Who need to be put in prison.

There are dangerous criminals who need to be off the streets.

But, the courts need to be unbiased in finding this out.

This is why we’re afforded rights in the constitution

Because innocence is to be assumed before guilt.

And not everyone who claims to be a victim actually is.

 

This is very controversial.

I know.

But… I don’t say it without understanding

The damaging effects such a law would present.

 

First for the victim

Because it would inure the courts to their pleas.

Second to the accused

Because it would ultimately turn the courts into a drama

It never meant to be.

 

Please understand I see this from both perspectives.

They seem to be contradictory

But certainly, both of these would effectively

Work in tandem

And the one thing that wouldn’t occur is justice.

A Union Jack is the same as America’s “Star Spangled Banner.” It is the poetic word for Britain’s flag.

A Man of War was a British fighting vessel.

The point of the first part of this poem is to juxtapose the Brier with the Dutchman. It simultaneously tells the story of both ships, before their clash at the end of the story.

It is a “Phantom” ship. I wanted to tease the reader. Maybe the Brier is fighting a specter. Maybe they are fighting real pirates. With my poems about Fairyland, I thought it was appropriate.

It was a happy little thought when finishing this poem, at the end, that Stew would set the Brier free from the Dutchman’s masts. It was a surprise, and happily, I chased that song. Because Stew had fallen into the Lagoon, and to think that the Dutchman, if it cared anything about its crew, might have been the ship spared.

A form of pirate torture was to string a man with rope, and pull them from bow to stern underneath the ship. The barnacles at the bottom of the ship would tear them apart.

“Lemon Stew” refers to a soup made of lemons that the British would feed their people so they would not get scurvy.

Fats were used as balms in those times. There were reports of Cortez using human fat to balm his men’s wounds. The thought of Whale Blubber was a good poetic choice, and because it is the St. Brier, they would have an ethical way to balm people. They’re not pirates, like Cortez.

The recurring line “Albion’s Reefs” was one I had made last minute. I saw it was a good complex metaphor.

The “VOC” was the Dutch East India Trading Company. They were famous for their piracy. They were the British East India Trading Company’s largest competition on the high seas. The Dutchman—being a possibly phantom vessel—had to be flying VOC flags, for the ambiguous reference to the state sanctioned piracy.

“Cull” here means to depopulate and populate at the same time. It is a cantonym. I had originally written it “Caul”, but realized that wasn’t the word I wanted, so I consulted my work “Young Shadows” to see how it was used in there. It was spelled “Cull”.

The inspiration to this poem was Pirates of the Caribbean and Master and Commander. Coincidentally, both of these stories were played in close proximity to each other, so I had been immersed in naval warfare for a period in my life. And, I found the scenes where the ships would battle in the high seas quite educational for this imagery.

I had worked Tree Trimming, so the idea for this was natural. Though, I had never seen trees get entangled in one another, I imagine that two ships would get their masts tangled quite easily in battle, and that the image of Stew—who I had decided to make the hero of this poem—saving the day by freeing the mainsail of the Brier from the Dutchman.

If the mast had not been cut, the Brier would have been sucked down into the abyss with the Dutchman.

I don’t believe Judges were ever on sailing vessels; but, I had written the poem from various sources pulled from memory. I decided to put a Judge on the ship for this reason, to represent England’s laws, that the Pirates would not be sentenced without a fair trial.

And of course Stew is the one who set St. Brier free, so the queen awarded him a medal and knighted him. I don’t know if such a thing would happen, but I decided to include it, since the Dutchman was a famous ship. I suppose it would be in this case appropriate.

I

 

Strung high that Union Jack

On a British Man o’ War—

The decks were clean,

The men well fed—

Off to seas from Albion’s shore.

 

Warped planks

And blood soaked boards

On that phantom ship of lore;

The Flying Dutchman with starving tars

Their walking bodies torn.

 

On the gangplank went a swab

A seaman named Ol’ Stew.

He hadn’t found his sea legs

So fell into the lagoon.

So, Ol’ Lieutenant Percy

Jumped into the cold-dark brine.

He grabbed this poor, good sailor

And saved him in ‘ knick-of-time.

 

On the Flying Dutchman

The mangled tars did cry,

“A man without his sea legs

“Will fall at once and die!”

 

The Dutchman saw a dinghy

They rid to it and hailed.

With the Jolly Roger high

They strung those victims pale.

Across the barnacled bottoms

Those live ones did get strung.

When brought back up the poopdeck

They were but bloody dung.

Their treasures were then stolen

Their women made concubines.—

The Dinghy that finds the Dutchman

Would have been better off to die.

 

The British Man of War, St. Brier

Found a dinghy, too.

They pulled up the cold bodies

And fed them lemon stew.

They gave them hot potatoes

And they fed them salted beef.

They nursed those wounds—

Were not so lewd—

To be brought back to Albion’s reefs.

 

There was a ship on fire

In the middle of the sea.

The Flying Dutchman found it

And raped and pillaged for fee.

Across the bows they fired

They made the women’s breasts bare.

They chopped to little pieces

All the men they had found there.

 

The St. Brier found a like ship

Stranded with no sails.

They brought aboard the survivors,

Secured a passage without fail.

They used whale oil to balm them,

They fed them with fattened meat.

They brought that crew asunder

To bring them back to Albion’s reefs.

 

II

 

One day St. Brier

Found stranded ship at sea.

Its flags flew Dutch,

As if the VOC

It signaled itself for peace.

The St. Brier sailed to see it

To bring it back to Albion’s reefs.

So! Open fired the Dutchman,

The Jolly Roger here now preened.

 

Grapeshot and musket balls,

Down fell seven on St. Brier

Which bow to bow would cull

As both ships set afire.

The ships cracked their brawny hulls

 

Ropes and masts were tangled

As men flung from sail to sail.

Guns there were, and great slaughter,

Dutch and Britt were slain.

The Dutchman’s crew were mangled

But the Man of War‘s wore red.

 

British troops in uniform

Did slash their swords in threes.

The Dutchman‘s hull caught fire

As the Brier‘s men cut free.

The Dutchman was near sunk

To swoon down into the sea,—

If not for Stew that outlier

The Brier would not be freed.

 

Brave Stew climbed the crow’s nest

He saw the ropes taught frill.

He took a sharpened hatchet

And hacked that thicket pill.

Like a lumberer up a tree

Stew hacked that Dutchman‘s mast.

It was near over, the Brier almost capped—

If the mast had not been snapped.

 

Stew held fast as St. Brier rocked

The Dutchman sank a tick.

The Dutchman‘s crew aboard St. Brier

Were sentenced on the Brig.

The old Judge aboard the Brier

There for this good thing

Who killed five of the Dutchman‘s crew

Sentenced each hang by string.

 

Ol’ Stew was given a medal

He was knighted by the Queen.

Ol’ Stew who had not sea legs

Was he who set St. Brier free.

Parisian streets

Wet with prismatic water;

The lamps bright

Flickering off of pools—

 

Walk cross paths.

Paint splatters high,

Mounds high—

Real miracles my road map—

Like a globe, running fingers down the mountains.

 

Had it not been a miracle

Suppose the book with legged Seraphim

Would suffice for my knowledge of miracles.

 

We cross paths many times.

There in the Parisian streets.—

Mounded high, over it my finger goes

Like touching a globe.

You want it, don’t you?

I do believe since the legged Seraphim

Inspired you

Those who sung in your dream

The Spanish hymn,

“We, We, We,”

I do suppose they are likely to give it to you.

I do not want you visions

But they are now mine

Because you stole from me.