Meet the Villainous Pirate Bob

"The pirate Bob was cruel and brave..."

Hi all. I’d like to share a few verses with you, villainous verses written for children. Wahahahaha! Today you will meet Pirate Bob.

Years ago a single quatrain popped into my head almost fully formed, and I wrote it down. I’m talking years, now. Last night I had dinner with my twenty-year-old son at a local burger joint, and I mentioned that I’d recently put some work into Pirate Bob. He clearly remembered the inception, perhaps a decade ago. I abandoned Bob after jotting his initial lines into a notebook. Here they are:

The pirate Bob was cruel and brave,
He loved both betrayals and treasons.
To look more terrific he never would shave.
His motto: “Skullduggery! Malfeasance!”

I love the words skullduggery and malfeasance. Each is so perfectly wicked within its own language tree. Together they make the perfect piratical motto.

Over the past couple of years I’ve lightly poked at Pirate Bob, now and then adding a verse to the song. At a certain point I conceived the germ of a story. The wife,

Kimberly Swait

, has recently encouraged me to work on the thing in earnest, so I’m about twenty verses in now, and ready to talk to my Substack community about it.

The hero of the story is not the pirate. Reminder: pirates are bad guys, rapists and pillagers. The hero is a heroine, abandoned bastard daughter of this pirate king, and eventually, she will destroy her father to save her people. Today’s preview will be from our introduction to Bob, but I would like you to get a glimpse of our heroine, daughter of an ex-slave, and resident of Hibiscus Isle.

I read this description of our heroine to a little girl, and her earnest exclamation of She sounds beautiful! is perhaps my proudest poetic moment.

Her skin was as brown as sugar of castor,
Her eyes were ocean green,
Her mouth was shaped by sunshine and laughter
And her voice was bright and clean.

The poem is written for children, but not aimed at very young children. The stakes in this poem, though it be a humorous song, are real: there are pirates, so there are flayings and there is rapine. So it’s aimed at ten-year-olds, but I hope it will delight all ages, including you. It bears repeating: the stakes, like the dragons, have to be real.

All I’ve written out so far is the introduction to Bob, so feel very free to interact and give feedback, either in the comments or in this Substack’s chat.

The poem is/willbe written in common meter, that dance of four and three feet which is woven through the warp and woof of English poetry. Common meter is the grand sing-along of poetic forms, and used in many songs, such as Amazing Grace and Gotta Catch ‘Em All (Pokémon Theme). Last technical note: as usual, I’m more interested in number of stresses per line than number of syllables. Feel free to make helpful comments regarding scansion. Everything’s in play.

But most of all, please enjoy.

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The pirate Bob was cruel and brave,
He loved both betrayals and treasons.
To look more terrific he never would shave.
His motto: “Skullduggery! Malfeasance!”

Of the teeth his mom gave him he’d only one left,
But his smile shined glinty and toothsome.
A hundred more teeth he’d acquired by theft
Of copper and gold: he was loathsome!

There was nothing that gave him quite as much glee
As burning a town down to ash.
His tour through the islands was a fiery spree!
As he looted he’d twirl his mustache.

The treasure ships he’d board a-swinging,
With a holler and an evil grin.
He spent his nights carousing and singing,
And urging his crew to sin.

In the rin-tin-ting and crash of blades
He found utmost satisfaction.
He’d dress in the skins of the men he’d flayed,
Which he cured ‘gainst putrefaction.

And from the plank he’d walk sweet maids,
For nothing him so enthralled
Than to hear their helpless cries for aid
As their dads watch them die, appalled.

The terriblest thing he ever had done,
A story that, soon as ‘twas written,
Had spread around like the sound of a gun:
He once bit the head off a kitten.

Suffice to say, this Bob was so bad,
His wickedness so nefarious,
That Papists and Protestants both thought him mad,
Oh this pirate temerarious. 

The name of Bob was a curse to the Dutch,
The Spaniard, and even the Limey.
But no hair of his mustache could they ever touch,
Their pursuits he’d foil or stymie.

The privateers who came for Bob
Have numbered well over a score.
But each one lays dead, their widows still sob,
While Bob sleeps soundly, and snores!

A sloop full of Hollanders cornered him once,
In a harbor close by to Aruba.
He made the Dutch captain look like a dunce,
And he slipped by their sloop off to Cuba.

Near Santo Domingo a canny young Spaniard
Had him dead in the sights of his cannon.
The firing pin broke when he pulled on the lanyard,
And Bob sailed off with the mammon.

A squadron of Englanders found after a storm
Bob on their leeward side,
And they would have caught him up in their swarm
But queerly, the wind just died.

There are many who think that pirates are cute,
They only see the swashbuckling.
The truth is, they rape and plunder and loot,
And spike the baby still suckling.

So Bob’s jolly roger caused more consternation
Than the average pirate’s black flag,
And many’s the murder built that reputation,
Many’s the town turned to slag.

But pirates are people, not monsters but men
(For men may be wicked as demons),
And like the bear that retreats to its den
A pirate needs rest for a season.

He’d found a bright bay, sheltered and calm,
Out there in the wild Caribbean.
From thence he would sally and threaten to bomb
Peaceful settlements right into oblivion.

But when he weren’t looting or skinning a foe,
He’d hie away to this beach.
Just where the Admiralty didn’t know,
Somewhere beyond their reach.

Well, me hearties…that’s it. I mean, that’s all I’m ready to share. I hope I’ve whet your appetite.

Remember, you can support my main project at New Quixote. Pre-buy my new translation of the Quixote, with illustrations by the lovely Kimberly Swait, at this link. And of course, subscribing either to this Substack or New Quixote is an excellent way to support me.