Hoist The Broken Crown

Pull the black cloth level, lads. The drowning sun has split again. Stitch it beneath the crown we broke. Let no man sew his name inside. The sea will learn us all together. The King sent truce in scarlet wax, safe harbor under seal. We left our powder in the hold and came ashore unarmed. While we stood beneath his white flags, his horsemen barred our streets. They chained our kin beneath the courthouse, drove the children to the quay. Then pitch ran down our red roofs. The chapel windows breathed flame. We watched our city burn from water, black ash settling on the sea. Our captain stood in falling cinders and spoke beside the gun: “While any hand can lift a match, no royal keel runs safe.” We raised black sail against a sky still blood-red from our streets. The moon stood white as witness. The tide took every spark. Above the sun we stitched a crown already split in two. The wind drew breath through every seam, and all our throats did too. Hoist the broken crown. Let the drowning sun burn red. Sail until the deep can name us— every voice the King called dead. Hoist the broken crown. Let the black sail take its breath. We did not kneel before the King. We will not kneel to death. Year upon year we hunted scarlet where the winter currents crossed. We broke the masts of revenue ships and fed their seals to salt. Their gilded crests went down beneath us, green where daylight failed. Behind each royal wake, the sea sealed graves without a stone. Salt entered all our old burns whenever weather turned. The sons who joined us knew our home only by the names we mourned. We gave them hatred as an heirloom before they chose its weight. Yet we became the house still standing when the King had burned the rest. Royal lanterns walled the east; hulls shouldered side by side. Wet braces cracked like ancient bones. The moon went cold above. We laid the last dry powder in every waiting gun. The wheel moved under all our hands. The course belonged to all. Hoist the broken crown. Let the drowning sun burn red. We sail until the deep can name us, straight where royal lanterns spread. Hoist the broken crown. Let the whole crew draw one breath. We will not kneel before the King. We will not kneel to death. The storm drew iron over heaven. The blood-red west went blind. A bronze note climbed the keelson from a depth no lead could find. We knew the wound within that ringing, the split note, low and slow: the bell of our drowned sister ship, lost with every hand below. No timber reached the beaches. No living witness came home. Old sailors kept the warning in verses banned ashore: the bell would wake when the sea came to gather what was owed. Then voices rose beneath our feet, not rigging, rain, or wood. The drowned began our chorus. Every living throat went still. The drowned may call beneath us. We hear them and hold fast. Every hand bears on the wheel. We choose the course at last. Set the bow between their lanterns. Keep the black cloth overhead. We do not ask for victory, nor mercy from the dead. We ask only that our ending stay beyond the King’s command. While one living mouth still sings it, our names remain in breath. Hoist the broken crown. Now the drowning sun burns red. The deep has learned to name us; each black wave repeats a name. Hoist the broken crown. Let the cannons make our prayer. We never knelt before the King. We do not kneel in death. Some say the fleet’s first broadside drove our mast beneath the waves. Some swear the royal line broke wide and one black sail passed through. When storms come down on harbor stone, some see our drowning sun ahead. The drowned bell sounds beyond the shoals. Far voices call our names in turn, then weather takes the rest. Hoist the broken crown... Sail until the deep can name us...