The Ballad of Blackear'd Jack

(a pretty slice of catterel to warm your cockles on the longest night)


A tale I tell of Blackear'd Jack,
a rogue without compassion
The fiercest cove to sail the sea
and smuggle fish and blasphemy
(at least within felinity
and after his own fashion).
His fur, I have heard tell, was black
and thick like velvet on his back.
His claws were long and sharp and true
and honed upon the bones of foes;
his eyes would mist with topaz hue
when there was slaying still to do
or when the moon arose.
And when he walked at night whilst docked
and eyed the unsuspecting shore
his followers around him flocked
and when he smiled they gasped in awe.
Because his wry and twisted grin
revealed the glint of teeth within -
such teeth! to those of normal cats
they were as sturgeon beside sprats.

And who am I to tell this tale?
I have not been where pirates are;
I have not braved the howling gale
or stalked the streets of lands afar -
ofttimes I simply cannot touch
on what the tales all tell -
in short, I have done nothing much,
and done it very well.
And yet I met the fellow when
his spring would never come again.
It was on land, he thin and wan
and all his glory days were gone.
He knocked upon our door one night -
he asked us, roughly, for a light -
and somehow, all before we knew it,
the door was shut and he was through it.
Once settled on our softest chair
he asked for finest meat brought there
and, if we could, ale past compare.
On this demand, when we hung back,
he said 'Ye will! I'm Blackear'd Jack!'.
This thing of him confirmed that fear -
a notch carved deeply in each ear
(as if, perchance, in times of sin
an earring had once shone therein).
To fight for ale he seemed inclined
and with a battle we were faced -
but suddenly he changed his mind
and now for catnip had a taste.
Well, some of this we had in store
(he soon was lying on the floor
and dribbling as he asked for more).
until the time he thought he was quite sated,
picking catnip from his canines with a knife,
he curled his tail and happily related
the dark and dreadful story of his life.

Picture an alley grim and cold
where mewling kittens scrape existence
in filth and barely at subsistence,
lives are scarred and snuffed and sold.
Jack's childhood, I am sad to say,
was not played out in such a way
but from the well-lit house beside
the alley where the kittens died.
Although, at times, he would peruse
their little corpses and enthuse.
'And what will you be when you're grown?'
his loving parents used to moan.
The question only made him bored -
but still, he thought that he could make  
a stab at being a hired sword,
or perchance be a rake.
And he grew tall and sleek and butch
but lived life doing nothing much,
until one morn that life turned round
and Blackear'd Jack was lost - and found.

The beat of feet at the end of a street
aroused his curiousity
as one whose drum was beating to come -
ambushed and nearly killed was he.
For gold he was sold and then flung in the hold
of the 'Mighty Cod', a bold man'o'war.
In reins of chains they worked him, with pains
he mewed - and was there nothing more
he knew to do, pressed into the crew
as the 'Mighty Cod' set sail from shore?
Yet Blackear'd Jack soon knew the score -
to scent dissent and sight malcontent,
to be one free to shout 'mutiny!',
incite that fight and out in the night
he slipped his bonds and gone was he.

A little boat he stole away in,
thought to find a sandy bay in -
but the currents were a-shifting
and though he thought that land was near
it somehow failed to quite appear
and he was left a-drifting.
He soon was out of food supply:
the taunts of seagulls from on high
made him inclined to wake at night
and watch the stars go wheeling by.
And still the days went creaking past, 
relentless dark, relentless light,
'til caked with salt he lay and gasped
beneath the sun-bleach'd sky.

It would have been the end of Jack,
but hark! on the horizon, black -
the silhouette whose spiky lines
strike terror into lesser felines.
It was the Pyrate Ship, 'Dead Whale'
of which is told so many a tale.
They saw him on the waves afloat
and out they sent a little boat.

Suffice to say Jack didn't know
about the place he was to go.
He thanked the Pyrates for his freeing
from the bottom of his being
instead of (as would be best) fleeing.
The Pyrates laughed with evil joy
and left his skin intact -
so as a lowly cabin boy
he entered Captain Bream's employ
and learned a wealth of fact:
that Pyrates is as Pyrates does,
unto the very end;
that gold is quite a helper as
you do what you intend;
that the knife between your shoulders is
most often from a friend;
and that a tom-cat's penis has
a barb upon the end.

In dark and evil times, to cope,
one has to find a way to hope.
So when in Zanzibar they docked
and sea-birds flocked above, and far
beneath the evening star, they knocked
into his hide another scar
he hid his secret thoughts inside -
an image formed then in his soul -
that he would scar the oceans wide
and Captainhood should be his goal.
And in the image in his schemes
on steaming flesh alone he dines,
with antique wines, and in his dreams
are quinqueremes and barquentines.
But fine though were his machinations,
from such stations he was far.
Gained he for these inclinations,
with frustrations, just a scar.
Many nights passed over sea
before this plan could come to be.
And many months then came to nought
until one night of great import
when Pyrates fought and fell to drink
and Jack was thinking late-night thought
and saw to port a ship mid-sink.
And Jack, who had begun to nod,
saw something odd as they swung past
this found'ring craft: 'The Mighty Cod!'
sware Jack,'By God, my chance at last!'.
The Pyrates slaughtered all the crew
(for it amused them so to do) -
and this was as Jack wished them to.
The deck was slick with blood and stuff,
the moonlight pale and somewhat fleeting -
and somehow Captain Bream slipped off
to give to Davy Jones his greeting
(perhaps with help, perhaps without;
for much suspicion was about).
The next few days were quite intense -
oft-times the 'Whale' was nearly wrecked
but after all the violence
Jack had, at last, respect.

So now the Pyrates' evil schemes
and twisted dreams bore new-formed fruit -
they took to brute force and extremes
with golden gleams to guide the route.
Of other corsairs still they heard
whose badness was yet more absurd.
They tried to be - and presently
their robbery was more baroque;
they lived to shock the peasentry
and ever be as hard as rock.
Their quest was now, as ne'er before, 
to show that they despised the law -
so they deposed a president
or two, killed half a government
and even loitered with intent.
They soon grew bored with loitering
and the odd king put to the sword;
they then ignored 'most everything
except for gold all glittering
and pretty things it could afford.
They went on quests - and some went ill -
to spill the Gold Fount and, as best,
arrest the dragon; then to kill      
the prince of all the Catacombs
despite his pleas, and through the glooms
and rising fumes of tainted seas
to sail with ease; they risked their dooms    
in ancient tombs, by reckonings
in gatherings in deserts cold
all thought to hold ('mongst other things)
forgotten kings, and took their gold.

And Corsairs back to Umbar went 
before the dread the Pyrates sent;
and Captain Hook, he liked them not
and sailed but paths they were not on -
they even, one time, sent some shot
across the bows of old Long John.
Other pirates? say but when
those noblemen who had gone wrong
to merry song sprang once again
'twas sorry pain they found ere long.
In short, the whole sea put to flight
'fore Pyrates eager for a fight.

But then the sky in day turned black;
the greatest storm in thirty years
had sneaked in close upon their back
and dreadful were their fears.
They were still twenty miles from dock -
waves like grey mountains heaved and tossed
and slammed upon the jagged rock -
the ship was stove in two, and lost.
All of her crew were drowned dead too
with only Jack except;
the broken mast he clung to through
the wrack and ruin, for he knew
he had more to expect.
The morning, dawning clear and cold,
found Jack on a lonely shore
upon a pile of shipwreck gold
and feeling somewhat sore.
Now Captainhood was still his goal
and though his fortunes now ebbed low
near was a place that he could go -
a place he could escape this hole:
the bustling port of Haddock Sole
(This was a well-known den of vice -
so, for his purpose, very nice).
And in the snickerts of this town
where knives go up and gin goes down
'mongst culver-headed dollymops
and squabby urchins raised in slops,
he finds a few for whom he stops.
A few from whom a crew might be
made out of, and made evilly.
In just ten hours, so good his aim,
our Jack was able to exclaim:
'Although I am near done, despite
the host of tigers all untame
and cats who can both bark and bite
and wish to set the seas aflame,
cutthroats and robbers, well-inform'd,
or all the rogues I can entice
our crew is not yet fully formed
and needs, perchance, a touch of spice,
one final last ingredient' -
so Jack and his new cronies went
to Old Tom Shrift and Betty Hen's
Emporium for Discerning Men -
A bawdy-house and opium den.
And from it drifts a catnipp'd haze
and frantic purring, moans and wails;
beneath the gaze of old Tom Shrift
the queen-cats lift their quiv'ring tails.
the sailors, drooling-mouthed with lust,
are queueing: just the thing, they trust,
after a pinch of fairy dust
to put the wind back in their sails!
But Blackear'd Jack went walking by, 
turned not one whisker on his head -
a glint was in his tawny eye:
'I'll take a cabin boy instead' -
and that was all that Blackear said.
(a harsh fate for a growing lad -
recall that penile barbs are bad)
His nascent crew was now complete,
replete with corsairs cruel and bold -
with gold they stole from the elite
and the effete and lords untold
they had them built a galleon
and thereupon were cannon placed
and iron-faced the hull was on
the places it might be disgraced.
This ship was named, 'The Hammerhead'
and many dead and many maimed
were famed to turn the waters red          
as Blackear bled the world untamed.
And unashamed and still unfailed
assailed all, no matter how,
the scurviest crew that ever sailed -
for all had bailed in with him now.
Amidst them, rough and boisterous,
he did more than survive:
The world became Jack's oyster as
he slurped it down alive.
For he became a Pyrate King
(the queens came flocking too -
he found them quite uninteresting
but kept a harem kind of thing
to entertain the crew)
and Pyrates of the world would bring
their treasure for his pleasure rare
and he in turn would let them live
and even, time to time, corsair.
His power was nigh-on arcane.
The world in terror from him ran
(as only worlds in terror can)
and nought could stop his reign.

Ah, 'tis oft-times unexpected when
the harshest stroke of fate befalls -
encountered he the race of Men
who treated him most kindly, then
relieved him of his testicles.
Old Jack was never quite the same
(the cabin boys were much relieved) -
in taverns hid he from his fame,
if sundry tales can be believed
he sat in corners grim and grieved,
the worse for drink, with mange and fleas,
and Other Pyrates ruled the seas.

Though degradation grimy-pawed
still deep and deeper he was clawed
and one dark day he woke to find
- to his great woe and consternation -
himself in bed at King's Cross station
with chickens of the kinky kind 
and Wagtailed Bob, famed sea-dalmatian.

So ever fainter shone his star
until he came to where we are - 
the sea and he were in divorce
and sundered from tall ships perforce.
And to our willing ears he told
his stories 'til the night grew old
and laid he down his nodding head
and sleepy went we to our bed.
We thought he was beyond foul tricks
but sadly, in the night,
he took off with our candlesticks
and vanished out of sight.

And now the cold has chilled his bones, 
abandons he his many homes
and lies and dreams of fish and stars
and seascapes, tavern brawls and scars
whilst curled up creaking in his bed.
But cheer ye not - for Jack ain't dead.