DAVID BOWIE IN HEDDON STREET

David Bowie died 10 years ago this Saturday. At the time I was commissioned to write this full page poem. I still perform it live.

DAVID BOWIE IN HEDDON STREET

In Heddon Street in January

The London drizzle falls the same

as softly as it did the night,

the camera caught in failing light

the famous phonebox, currant red

with Ziggy Stardust in the frame

A tinted showbiz biscuit tin

Which drew the viewer in

An atmosphere which seemed

to speak

of basement studios, upstairs flats,

bell-push models, queenly spats

The rent collected once a week

from burned out boys who'd known

Joe Meek

An England done with swinging now

The party-over, drab new nights

of keg-beer pubs and candle stubs

the IRA and mid-week subs

Wildcat strikes at factory gates

An apathetic audience waits

The 1960s firmly dead

A man from Mars arrives instead

What was it in the water then

that forged a breed of pop messiahs

From underfed suburban lads

Grown up by gas convector fires?

Skinny, pale, with poor dentition

Actor, clothes-horse, pop musician

In David's case, all three in one

An odyssey which he'd begun

In sixty-watts of Bromley sun

When Ziggy sang and played guitar

No one yet had gone that far

In Sutton Coldfield, Aylesbury Bucks

and Sunderland they'd cheer

The brickies bellowed," 'Allo ducks!"

the dads asked, "Is 'e queer?

"Gets harder now to tell the boys

from girls, with every year."

The critics too, blew cold

and hot as critics do.

Why would they not?

The Seventies then bedded in

in feather boa and satin flare

Dull suburbs sat like Hamelin

Awaiting anthems on the air

from some pied piper yet unheard

to woo them with a magic word:

The oddball kids, the bookish geek

the ones their classmates labelled

'freak'

Sequestered in their rooms all week

They're captivated by his eyes

"You're not alone!" the Starman cries

Now of his band what shall we say?

The Spiders, not from Mars but Hull

Were best of any in their day

If Kingston upon Hull, the name

did not roll off the tongue the same

The Spiders seemed to play guitars

As if they really came from Mars

Now all the teenage kooks who went

to hear the boys from Hull and Kent

remember, late in middle-age

how Ziggy broke the gender cage.

And when we dig his records out

from hard-drives, i-pods, racks

or shelves

And shed a tear, we find the truth

is also, that we mourn our youth.

Immortal youth, its peerless light

which twinkles in the ageless night

until we find how frail we are

Crashing in the same old car

In Heddon Street in January

The phone-box now is gone

Where fans took pictures

of themselves

When Ziggy had moved on

Where did they go -- those slips

of boys?

Grown up with steam trains

in their eyes

And rockets in the Dan Dare skies

Above the dingy terraced streets

of Britain after war?

America, by any score would seem

some kind of Shangri-la...

Best slap some lippy on, then, kid

and bring your best guitar.

America eats talent like a wolf

devours a lamb

With tenderising powder which can

turn your mind to spam

That's when you have to wrestle

with your inner Peter Pan

Then, if the boy stops swinging

he may just become a man.

But even politicians cough.

Describing him as 'nice'.

They missed him at the kick-off

Now they're gagging for a slice.

He 'helped bring down the Berlin Wall'

it's said, young Bromley Dave

'Fashion icon, futurist..and genius'

Oh behave!

The ones who'll really miss him

are the girls then in their teens

Recalling that one weekday night

he burst onto their screens

Instantly monopolising all their

magazines.

Promoting moral panic from St Mawes

to Milton Keynes

They won't remember mourning

any pop star in this way

And won't know why they're weeping

in the middle of the day.

He was Youth and he was Beauty

He was talented and clever

So stunningly original and...

They thought he'd live forever.

In Heddon Street in January

The sun falls on a plaque

Like an actor taking encores

in a Mayfair cul-de-sac.

And here beside the doorway

are his flowers in a stack.

But Ziggy Stardust's never

coming back

And all the worldly traffic may

resume its migraine rumble

While all the Babylonian showbiz

rumour mills can crumble

Let legend be his epitaph

The lily needs no gilding

Ladies and Gentlemen

Mr Bowie's left the building