a lad in dave

the song begins

and the band
are all playing their instruments
as they create their confection

they’re making a cake of music for dave to climb up on
and then apply
his icing of wordage and the cherry of himself on top

dave then passes round the cake to all of us

puts it in your mouth

speaking of cherries
dave has a refrigerator at home

he has a sofa some chairs knives and forks its crazy isn’t it

dave’s plates for heaven’s sakes

the sound of dave’s knives and forks on dave’s plates for heaven’s sakes

dave waters dave’s plants

dave brushes dave’s teeth

dave does the d-d-d-d-dishes

ch-ch-ch-ch-changes his lightbulbs

his room is blue blue

in common with all the famous
dave’s locked out of the world

cannot ever get back in
doesn’t even try

doesn’t even mime searching for an invisible door

some facts about dave –

dave’s bonnet never has any bees in it

there is never a twist in dave’s knickers

dave hasn’t got egg on his face
he’s got a bolt of lightning on it

oh wait here’s that piano section of the Aladdin Sane dave-cake

it runs like a fevered seam through the cake’s middle

it is the jam between two sombre sponges

each of its notes a mellifluous pip in that jam
a pip which pops on your tongue and is gone before you know it
a tiny memory
a fading taste

dave stands back –
appraises his minions as they bake up a storm

the whole cake quivers and rises

i don’t know why this is happening
but dave and i are starting to get on

we’re getting on like dolphins
like dolphins can swim

though i admit to being a tiny bit star struck

bloody hell you’re David Bowie i say

i know he says
and lets go a massive smile with those
english teeth lined up in it

he lets it off its leash
and it’s so vast that smile of his

that the smile itself starts to smile on top of itself
smiling at its own size

feeding off its own enormity

and that sets off a chain reaction which builds and builds
until it pulls in the whole delighted universe

holds it tight for a moment in a delicious squeeze

and then sets it free out the other side
reborn and new

is it ok to cry

i’ve moved in with dave now
and I’m a bit like a butler
doing some of those chores i mentioned
like watering dave’s d-d-d-d-dishes

we’re kind of equals though

we have a kind of equity

watch us in the lounge
me in my three piece
dave in his onesie

observe the relaxed way we laugh at each other’s jokes
nobody trying too hard

here we are listening to Aladdin Sane on dave’s record player
he asks me what I think

dave’s so small he’s like a knick-knack

so i dust him quick with my feather duster
knowing it’ll tickle

and dave then chases me (him giggling) (me shrieking)
round and round dave’s house

up and down dave’s stairs

round and round dave’s garden

i’m faster on the straights but he’s nippy as hell on the corners

it’s late now

very late and dave comes down from his studio
where he writes his hits and does his charlie

come and sit over here dave
that’s right tuck in here

(dave can’t see very well because his eyes are so beautiful)

“Millions weep a fountain, just in case of sunrise” he says
and detonates another catastrophic smile

when David Bowie wrote Aladdin Sane he was going to die one day

we were all going to die one day