Once upon a time there was a jester who jumped
into the busy court of Camelot, who surprised all
as he presented himself with his shoes ringing a
tune, bells entrancing those gathered to be both
entertained and harangued, as the sharp sword
was swung from great heights, as he bade the bird
tweeting on his shoulder to carry out his messages,
the court messenger pigeons all baked in a pie, until
only a few feathers were left, reminding those gathered
in awe, how quickly the world can be turned and how
easily suborned those courtiers could be, hanging on every
word of those who strode the shiny flagstones, cleaned
of sweat and blood over successive dynasties.

A jester morphed from a king in another court where subjects 
were hired and fired in the fawning crowd that was a
place of vicarious life and death, a king who became a
clown for sale, to entertain any court in the land, brought
with him a bag of tricks never seen before, stories beyond
belief, a bird that never slept, tweeted into the dawn and
spoke to the world at large, just to avoid confusion.

Camelot was his new destination, where he could impose
as imposter, to see if the court could find his guise, as he
paraded as jester, not a king in new clothes invisible to
mere mortals, as he wove narratives and displayed tricks
never seen before by those in awe, obesience like crowds
who attended in the presence of Stalin’s Kremlin where a
blink was disrespectful, rewarded with total disappearance.
 

Shame was heaped on this clown king jester, as he
stumbled but no-one saw, too polite to say, knowing that
they too were disposable at a word from the bird that never
slept, but the bird droppings, usually a sign of good luck,
heaped up on his shoulders, his coiffure, and the smell was
in the air, even when the court was empty.

Eventually the shiny flagstones were vacated, the jester had

run out of tricks, of crowds, it was going to be a game of

patience
but the pack was thinning, and he could no longer read
the cards in his blindness, ears drowned and empty from
the screams that once used to keep him awake. Oh how
the mighty and the flighty are fallen. The jester morphed again, a little boy, his toys taken and his hissy fits ignored.