But up close he’s not scary - more broken and sad.
You’d almost feel pity if that smell was less bad.
He asks you a question in a voice barely heard;
A dry-as-dust rasp from a very old bird.
And the question he asks you is so hard to answer;
It pricks like a thorn in the shoe of a dancer.
‘What did you do,’ you hear the voice say,
‘When the Great Cocky made his big play?’
Of what does he speak, in that voice high and wheezy?
And why do you feel so strange and uneasy?