ON CAPTAIN KIDD
- 15 hours ago
- 1 min read
By Ian Harvey
i
Tried. Guilty as charged.
For shame that sweet toothed justice
Swallowed the honeyed lies
Of corrupt, capricious men
With too much to lose.
Lies. A sham.
They cursed his name – a pirate
Raped by falsehood in the dock.
“I will not trouble this court
Any more, for it is
Folly.”
And so the perjurers, triumphant,
Slipped the noose
Around the turned neck
Of Captain Kidd
“The innocentest of them all.”
ii
He died at sunset in Wapping
On special gallows erected on
The Thames bleak foreshore.
And after the rope snapped,
Hope snapped.
Fleetingly freed,
He was hanged again,
With stronger rope
Till dead.
iii
His bloated corpse was
Pressed into an iron cage and
Put on public display like a
Cadaverous parrot,
Screeching a warning to all…
Justice is a whore
Justice is a whore