Black Star
Final London weeks
dancing to Heroes
with my lover
in the nightclub’s fractured light,
as our skin shimmered, bodies ached –
Though nothing can drive them away –
it seemed that Bowie
beat them for us,
his odd eyes
commanding time, transforming
just one day
into a type of forever.
Ashes to Ashes
He kissed the crowd with stardust. Then he sang.
Limits wiped away like makeup when he sang.
Ten. Nine. Counting down to freedom. Deep space
waiting for our sparkle. Eight, seven he sang.
Shamed to silence for my off-key warble, when
the speakers shook with Diamond Dogs, even I sang.
His personas dulled, bled moonbeams. Every
time re-formed, again he rose. Again he sang.
Changed to dolphins by his wishing, we swam free
and desperate in the lost ocean he sang.
Queer, odd, lonely, alien – his skewed eyes
turned us holy, beautiful. Amen, we sang.
The news knocked us back to our teen names.
Look up here, I’m in heaven, he sang.