The Man Who Wore A Hundred Hats

None of them suited him, which was his aim, 

being a king contrarian, 

but he wore them in rotation just the same.

The bowler hat, he found, was best for fights

in certain Irish bars.

Otherwise, as the mood prevailed,

top hat or mitre might spark outrage

according to the setting.

One day he went to court in a paper crown,

and the white wigged judge sent him down

for contempt and macking a mockery

of the British legal system.

But you can't keep a zen man down for long.

I have seen him, I swear, striding the clifftops

bedecked by a tricorn,

as if he was absurdly born to it,

looking through an unglassed spyglass

for sailships no longer there,

perplexing tourists by the coachload.

He has been spotted in a fez,

engaged in more serious debate,

straight faced arguing the toss;

reclaiming it, he says,

from flippant Tommy Cooper fans.

The night cap he wore Dickensian

at his day shift in the factory,

until the health and safety clowns

outrageously outlawed it.

I hear that he cutshapes obscenely

at a rave in a nice tweed trilby,

until at least the heat overcame him.

But even as he was carted off 

he quick changed into a fedora

more suited for A and E.