Bowie’s Ghost
Relinquishing memory, a faint one at that
a day-old creation, only ripened like fruit
begotten backwards and in an old style;
brinksmanship is the goal, and trickery the background
for all rhythm and blues behind the curtain-
beyond speech and flown to the moon, you know,
like a train and pitiful passion-
it’s what we know, and we know it well.
The pulse of the world brings my loins to the brink of
disease,
of languor, of fury;
and all talk is made to kneel and pray
to your new horizon, my bastion of faith, your memory of
guts,
our own DNA shot to hell,
my only blessed constancy placed within a crystal goblet-
only you know.
Only you know.
So are you pleased?
Will the Scandal bring you forth from the fold
and from my second son and toward a fetal memory
having broken into a song of gilded prophesy
begotten upside down and with purposeful style,
the window blackened by smoke and soul.
Will you ever know?
Will we understand?