Poetry
David Bowie Sex Dream #2
Kevin McGowin
I find myself in an art gallery reading Modern Painting, the editorial staff of which Bowie is a member. Suddenly a picture of a sculpture I've seen many times before speaks to me in Bowie's voice (the deep one), saying "Why talk shit about Damien Hirst? You don't understand him." I look up and there's Bowie himself, and he repeats the sentence. I tell him I prefer Francis Bacon. He waves a dismissive hand and says pshaw. I ask him if I can hang my paintings on the wall of the gallery. "It's not my gallery," he says, "And we have no paintings here. Only Art." The last word echoes and reverberates around in the now-empty space. I can't remember what was there before.
Bowie produces a large brush and begins to paint yellow squiggles on my now-bare chest. I ask him where it went my shirt. "Ha!" he says, and it appears back on me from his brush, although it's green now (it had been black). Bowie laughs. He sounds like Jeremy Irons.
I realize I need to get out of this ArtSpace, and pronto. Bowie's undergoing another metamorphosis. "I'm ready," he croaks. And suddenly we're spinning down a dark abyss and land on a bed in the middle of a 14th century monastery where the monks are chanting and masturbating. "See," he says, pointing his index finger into my neck and running it down to my navel, "Only Art." I become aroused as he offers me a Jolly Rancher (watermelon flavor). The monks are chanting loudly now.
I realize I'm being transformed by the same spirit that is animating Bowie. "Let's write a musical to be produced in the year 2,000," I say to myself. Bowie answers assent with silence. An elderly monk is rubbing me quickly.
The monk speaks with Bowie's voice: "I love your fractured energy." I tell him he's such a trickster. "You trickster you," says me, and I reach under his monk's robes.
And when I do I find me and Bowie at a murder scene in late 40s South Dakota. We both look down at it. "Ah, grizzly," he says, now looking like himself. "But beautiful." I ask him if we should use Ektachrome or print film for it. "Don't need to, ducky!" he screams. "We're already here!"
And we're covered with red paint that used to be yellow while lying in a big heap of to-be-recycled-paper. "I'm one with you now," he whispers through the bubbles. I see an old copy of his magazine and there I am, lying here in there. He holds up his fingers to simulate a camera. "Clicckk," he says, and smiles largely. I see a photo of myself waking up at home. I'm bleeding and I smell like paint and strong cologne.