Today, to be
Surrounded by allies,
To be a part of the group,
The tribe, the crowd,
The community, the cool kids,
You have to be
Even more willing
To swallow
Shovelfuls of horseshit
Than you did
In the past
There was always
A certain amount of
Necessary conformity
In being part of a
Group of any kind
Even to have friends,
You had to kind of
Dance around
Their sensitive spots,
Tell them what they
Wanted to hear
Otherwise,
You might as well be
A monk, living in a cave
On a mountaintop
And in the past,
This was reasonably
Okay
Because friends and groups
Often brought with them
Good times, safety, opportunities,
Counsel that was
Worth more than the
Toilet paper sticking to
The bottom of that guy’s shoe
As he walks out of the john
But today,
It’s far wiser
To avoid any crowd
Any gathering
Of more than perhaps
Three to five people
Is probably already
Contaminated
With at least one person
Who is so incredibly stupid
That they’ll get you killed
Or locked up
Or they’ll do some sort of
Serious damage
To your reputation,
Your mental health,
Or something
Most people think the term
Loose cannon
Has something to do with
Cops who don’t follow the rules
But still get the job done
We can thank 1980s movies
For that
But it really refers to
The cannons on old ships
Those things weighed
Anywhere from half a ton
To four tons
And if they weren’t
Properly secured,
Chained in place on the deck,
The slightest bad weather
Could send these huge
Behemoth hunks of iron
Tear-assing all over the ship
They’d crush a man to death
Instantly, like a grape
They’d smash through
The hull of the vessel
And sink it
In 1545, there was
An English carrack
Called the Mary Rose
A rose was the Tudor emblem
It was Henry VIII’s flagship,
Named after his favorite sister,
Mary Tudor, Queen of France
She weighed 700-800 tons,
Altogether;
The ship, that is,
Not Mary Tudor,
Queen of France
That carrack had
91 guns onboard,
8 ½ to 12 feet long,
Weighing anywhere from
3,000 to 6,000 pounds each
The Mary Rose was hit by
A sudden squall
Many, if not all, of the guns
On one side of the ship
Flipped over and went
Careening into the
Other side of it
It went down into the ⠀
Bubbling depths
Along with 400-700
Soon-to-be-dead men
That’s what it means
To call someone
A loose cannon
And that’s basically what
Most people are
In the modern world
They’re heavy,
Dull as iron,
Explosive,
And not moored to
Anything stable
They don’t have the
Sense to lash down the
Heavy artillery
During heavy weather
They only care about
Their freedoms,⠀
Their autonomy,⠀
Their right to roll around⠀
On the floor like babies
⠀
However they want,
Whenever they want,
Wherever they want
And they care nothing
About whether or not they will
Get you hurt in the process
Regardless of what they say;
It’s their actions that do the
Real talking
They might
Seem secure
At the moment
But that’ll change,
The moment you hit a little
Rough weather
No,
Today,
In pretty much every
Conceivable way,
Unless you have
A really solid crew
Of a half-dozen men
Or less
You’re better off
Alone
©2026 Kevin Trent Boswell
