Ground Control to Starman

"I don't know where I'm going from here, but I can promise it won't be boring." ~David Bowie

While Starman was waiting for him in the sky,

David was painting a lightning bolt across

His kaleidoscope eyes

And clifflike cheekbones,

Humming to himself about Major Tom,

Outer space, aliens,

Ziggy Stardust and of how

He wanted to be more than human.

In the Labyrinth

As the Goblin King,

Dancing with Jim Henson’s puppets

All covered in glitter

He found his

Superhumanity.

In the drugs that

Lit up his mind,

Kept him thin as a whittled stick

And spit out words for his lyrics

He discovered enlightenment and the

Superlative beyond.

In his LSD-chromatic clothes,

Dyed-scarlet mullet

And sonorous voice, he uncovered

A skin for his invented character.

But in the cancer

That ate his liver

And dried him into a husk

He realized his mortality.

He found it in the radiation

That burned his flesh,

Poisoned his cells

But couldn’t devour his murderer.

And what of the Starman

Waiting to blow his mind?

Was he just a Sputnik up above,

Sucking him into space?

Or maybe he was his own Starman all along,

Singing his origin story

To us tiny humans below,

As if he were an alien from Mars

Who could only communicate

Through song.