Can anyone who's read The Fallen Birdman by Roger McGough tell me why...?

Question

..in the 3rd paragraph he describes the man as having a womb? What (if anything) is this supposed to symbolise?

The poem runs as follows:

The oldman in the cripplechair

Died in transit through the air

And slopped into the road.

The driver of the lethal lorry

Trembled out and cried: 'I'm sorry,

But it was his own fault'.

Humans snuggled round the mess

In masochistic tenderness

As raindrops danced in his womb

* * *

but something else obsessed my brain,

The canvas, twistedsteel and cane,

His chair, spreadeagled in the rain,

Like a fallen birdman.

Roger McGough

Answer 1

I love Roger McGough's work, but confess this one has me stumped too.  

Answer 2

The primary thing that the line "As raindrops danced in his womb" does for me is evoke the image of a very mutilated body. The old man's body has become a bloody mush - his corpse has burst open and splattered its contents all over the road - and so the raindrops now fall onto his organs.

Notice how the third line reads "And slopped into the road". The body 'slops' - an onomatopoeic word like 'splat' (but accompanied by the suggestion of a downward motion) - and the body slops INTO the road, not onto it: there is clearly a lot of liquid and mush involved! All this, along with the "womb" image, strongly suggests that the old man's corpse is now a bloody pulp.

As for exactly why the poet chose the word "womb", this is a more difficult one. Besides the fact that there are not many one-syllable internal organs to choose from, perhaps the word "womb" draws our attention to the fact that this scene is about a loss of life, not the creation of life. To mention a "womb" highlights that this scene is the very opposite of birth, and laments that life will no longer invigorate this body, that the organs that are splattered across the road will no longer create or sustain life. It's life that is supposed to dance inside the womb, not the rain.

Also, perhaps the word - because it's applied to a man - makes it seem like he's not properly human but something else. This is the point of calling him a "birdman" too, and so having a "womb" only stresses that he is not a normal man. In more than one sense, then, death has made this old man a non-person.

Clearly the poet thought the word "womb" was essential. Maybe he would even have prefered the elderly person to be female, but 'The Fallen Birdwoman' doesn't have the same ring to it!