There once was a raucous rooster
That let rip from dusk til dawn
Squawking and squeaking
Shattering the silence
Wailing at and waking everyone
Atop the riad’s roof
In its unsound-proofed coop
Lived the little s**t
Safe as houses
Out of reach
Where the likes of us couldn’t get at it
On the hour
Every hour
It’s creaky cries could be heard
Sharp enough
To shatter glass
This was no sweet song bird
So out of tune
It serenaded the moon
It’s croaky chords sending shockwaves into space
I’ll never know
How us occupants below
Got any shut eye with that cock
on our case
Oh how we fantasised
Oh how we dreamed
Of wringing it’s neck
And rendering it tagine
If only to get
A bit of peace
Instead of tossing and turning
And counting bloody sheep
And it’s feathers could have been dyed
And arranged into a sphere
A Juju Hat to be wall-mounted
Like the prized head of a deer
That we had hunted and felled
In an insomnia-induced frenzy
By commandeering an earth to air missile
For a few thousand dirham and twenty
And launching it at
That f***ing coop
Where the raucous rooster reigned supreme
Atop the riad’s roof in Essauria
A fishing port
On the edge of the Medine.