My Friend, AD Member Georg Mateos,

Recently Posted His Excellent Poet’s Nest Challenge

Entitled – 'My Southern Belle,' Based on This Picture.

So I Also Humbly Submit My Challenge Entry,

Based on the Same Picture.

“Beware, so long as you live,

Of judging men (and women)

By their outward appearance.”

Jean de La Fontaine

She was born in old County Cork, Ireland

To a maid in her married father’s household

But such a horrendous scandal her birth did cause

She soon became a ravishing beauty, bloody and bold

Lovely Anne and her father sailed away to the colonies

Where she helped him run a huge plantation in Charleston

But it’s rumored that she murdered a servant one spring day

And nearly killed a very handsome young suitor, ‘just for fun’

Our beautiful young Anne soon tired of the lavish plantation life

She now ran off and married a pirate by the name of James Bonny

They soon sailed off together to the port of Nassau in the Bahamas

Where Anne quickly became a femme fatale of considerable infamy

She very quickly took up with a very wealthy beau of impeccable taste

Traveling in the best circles and now being invited to the Governor’s Ball

Where our bonny lass soon got into a nasty cat fight with his sister-in- law

Knocking out two of her teeth, yet somehow escaping the law in this brawl

And alas, now even her very wealthy beau could not hold on to her

She ran off with an even more villainous scoundrel called Calico Jack

And soon this bonny lass became so skilled with both pistol and cutlass

She began dressing as a man and leading many a bloody pirate attack

In the fall of 1720, the Governor of Jamaica ordered an attack on her ship

So this bonny lass now known as Anne Bonny again led the pirates’ fight

But most of the crew aboard her ship The Revenge were bloody drunk

Many of them were killed and our bonny lass hauled off to prison that night

But like other pirate tales it seems our bonny lass escaped the noose

Using her charms to convince her guards to release her, fleeing with zest

The last historical account of this bonny bloody pirate named Anne Bonny

Places her in Virginia, climbing on a horse, riding into the sunset, due west

Who Knows Whatever Then Became,

Of this Very Bonny, But Very Bloody Lass,

But I’m Sure That She Beguiled Many More Lads,

Before the Day Finally Came, That She, Too, Did Pass

©2007, Mr. Ed, A Humble Pirate Historian,

And One Who Never Judges a Book by Its Cover