Wild West Pirate

I live in land-locked Canada, the pirates here are few,

Unless you count the people who, sound ethics, they eschew.

And so I’ll tell you all of someone, though he never sailed,

When’er his gang came into sight, the population quailed.

Outside Fort Sumner, way down south, there sits a lonesome grave,

A testament to Someone who could never quite behave.

Fatherless for most his life—an orphan at fifteen,

This young man was a lot of things, and all of them were mean.

He started as a laundry thief (when first he got arrested),

He soon broke out and roamed the west. The law this boy detested,

It didn’t take six years before he brought the country grief,

He’d murdered 21 and been a gunslinger and thief.

He loved to sing, but breaking law sure was his fav’rite thing,

He seemed to thrive on violence and the chaos that it brings.

He stole cattle, he stole horses and he shot a man or ten,

Caught and sentenced, shot some more, escaping from the ‘pen’.

His crimes earned him a bounty and they finally locked him in.

Sentenced to be hanged, he was to pay for all his sins,

But once again, those jail walls, they simply didn’t hold,

Killed two deputies escaping. You know, wow! this guy was bold!

His luck ran out a short time hence, when good old Sheriff ‘Pat’,

Shot him once right through the heart and laid the boy out flat.

The celebrating started then, throughout the ‘wild west’,

Sighs of relief and happiness and gratitudes expressed.

But sadly, in the after years, this boy became a star,

The Man who finally shot him was despised both near and far.

The story’s gotten twisted and now Pat’s the nasty one,

‘He caught this young assassin in the dark and with a gun.’

  

But now you’ve heard the story of young William McCarty?

His six-year reign as outlaw, his assassinating spree.

Cause Billy the Kid was many things. And all of them were bad...

So who really was at fault that day? The sheriff or the lad?

Our new po-e-try challenge had a fun, pirate-y theme,

For Karen and her followers, a captivating dream,

And now you've read my take on it and judged it bad or fun,

Go now to others in my 'hood' and see what they have done! 

Karen of Baking In A Tornado: Pirate Table for One Dawn of Spatulas On Parade: Argh Matey

Lydia of Cluttered Genius: A Pirate’s Booty