Ashes to Ashes Tribute to David Bowie

I imagine nothing happening,
a pair of glasses, an oversized
armchair; a pronounced
experiment in failure for you.

I don’t understand this rational
approach that has you dying
so you can be reborn again,
into the corner cafes and tea

houses where the artistic is a
bridge you must cross desensitized
from the muse who follows wherever
he is led.

There are adjacent streets to walk
in, to raise eyebrows with, polluted
from use in the cheapest of ways,

and you’ve seen them all,

those ominous signs of communal
ideas to earning triple digit profits,
not with poetry of song but with entitlement.
Disgusted, you swore you’d never

write again, sing again, perform again;
but then you hitched-hiked to that
place in Brixton, where the soot-smelling
dreams of all things romantic and unique

resonated within you. Carrying six dollars
and a knapsack you bought from a vendor,
you were reborn many times as you rode
the rails of life like the junkie you were,

feeling the uptown beats of inspiration.
Spontaneity was your rap, your flow,
the monster you hauled through every
road stop in spite of cash.

There were those that chucked and criticized
you for cramming it all in, for truly feeling,
when they felt nothing. A true artist is this,

a true artist is that,

presumably they questioned in the solemnity
of those cheap moments where there was
never to be a suitable answer, if ever,
to keep them satisfied.

That will cost you five dollars, maybe one hundred,
we’ve got your bag all right. The artist’s left now.
Sorry folks, the stage is closed. Fade to black,
empty, ominous quiet.