Dead Men and Sinners

we set out for sea with icicles in our beards 
where the wind bit like dog's teeth 
and the sea swept our ship up like the hand of a god that had been enraged 
so we carried our dead to the shore 
and that left nine more 
there was violence in the air tonight 
when the ship split in half we lost two to the brine 
and the seawater swilled across the floor 
and the captain lives no more 
for he sleeps on the ocean floor 
the old [bad word] was as big as a bear 
his coffin was made of a redwood's trunk 
his appetite never thinned 
his belly was wide as two barrels of gin 
cut the engine 
tie it off to the post 
heave away at my call 
listen well one and all 
we'll be rid of this scourge 
when his body goes overboard 
he'd been in irons for seventy days 
fed just gunpowder to fuel his rage 
screamed bloody murder and tore at his chains 
we made him this way 
we were left on that isle 
with a skeleton crew 
made of dead men and sinners 
hell-bound through and thorugh 
then it was HE who came to our shore 
and he left no more