PostPoems Be Artistic. Be Creative. Be Inspired!

I, too, admired their dream:  the fantasy

of government founded on liberty,

all voices voting in democracy;

not one man born to aristocracy,

much less the privileged birth to monarchy.

The world, however, does not work that way.

Our vast empire is proof, almost each day.

When Lord North was dismissed, His Majesty

gave orders for a fierce, new strategy.

Our stock of ordance was greatly increased

(purchased from France, Prussia, and Italy),

delivered with all haste to my command,

supreme among all officers, both land

and sea, with this directive:  "Liberally

"scorch all natural resources, with quick zeal,

"and strike these rebels, giving no surcease."

Three years of that:  still, we did not exhaust

the King's stockpiles (God only knows the cost

to purchase all of that, added together).

Relentless fires, and smoke clouds, changed the weather.

At last, those ragged bumpkins sued for peace---

pursuaded, I think, by pangs of starvation

followed by epidemics of disease.

The signers, bastards, of the "Declaration,"

and all their army's senior officers,

were hung (slow drop) in London's celebration.

Some experts in animal husbandry

and others who are wise in botany

have visited America's east coast,

from Massachusets south to Georgia.  They

have told the King:  at least ten years---(at most

is still unknown)---Nature needs to restore

the whole expanse (once thirteen colonies)

back to the barest of living conditions

(others have answered with far worse suspicions).

Most certain now is that no cultivation

is viable, nor fit for habitation

for any time.  Most colonists are dead;

and those few who survived, though scathed, have fled

into what Prussians call the "hinterlands";

there to be broken by rough life's demands.

I know you would like to see a lot more,

but we would be unsafe to go ashore.

Nothing but scorched destruction and gray ash

remain.  Strolling into it might be rash.

We are much safer, distant, in the bay.

These decks provide a good view, anyway.