All The Madmen: After Bowie

I am a pirate, a scoundrel. A sinner

I stole fire from the gods.

They tracked me down by my nighttime flame,

Shot me up on the darkling plain.

I shot myself down

You can’t live like that. It is not allowed.

So the ground rushed to meet me when my fall was over

I fell softly but firmly into white walls, hushed voices

And the occasional piercing shriek. It was obligatory

That one of us loosed it, from time to time. That

Is what the situation called for.

It gets old. So old

And, of course, so do we;

We learn (or don’t, depending on our propensity for fakery)

To pretend the gods hold nothing for us that we desire

Or don’t desire. We pretend that heaven is a place you go

For being good. It is not. Heaven is

In your neuroreceptors, in the eyes

Of the beautiful stranger, in our devotion

To strange practices and elaborate rituals that

Germinate in the dusty, empty halls of our short lives

And blossom us into magic: lush and intricate stories

Of detailed character and epic feats.

Heaven is make-believe,

And without it life is unbearable.

Having left this earth, David Bowie is not in heaven;

But he has left great heaven here.

David Bowie, back here on earth,

stolen fires everywhere

burn in your memory