I Was Born As Bowie Sang From Mars – Antony Owen

I Was Born As Bowie Sang From Mars

In the babbling brook of my birth I knew that women were harbours
and I was the boat attached to a cord getting lost as they cut us apart.
In the deep blue sea of my birth eyes I drank the sour milk of night sky
and my Father swam there as he took in the salt of his shipwrecked son.

I know this of sons and daughters, they are islands claimed by sea
and why I am drawn to the pull of the ocean was never beyond me.
I know this of broken waters, they are violence maimed by breeze
and why I was torn from the hull of her ocean brought me to my knees.

On the earthquake of my Grandfather’s chest I heard his crow black heart
lifting mockingbirds drenched in tar from years of knock off cigarettes.
In the deep blue sea of his collar I floated like wild geese over Willenhall
where one of my friends was made by the lake in a stolen Ford Capri.

I know this of my birth I was born as Bowie sang all the way from Mars
and as I entered earth around dawn a snowy owl flew through burnt out cars.
I know this of my life I have yet to watch the geese fly over Willenhall Wood
Gonna take my wife and fall on my knees, yeah, she’ll dab away the blood.

In the cracked beds of my Father’s face I know why men are shipwrecks
they sailed by the Blackstar Bowie found in masts of deathbed cotton,
they floated away like Ford Granada’s down newly tarmacked streets
where lost boys like me always ended up with David Jones and Bowie in Mars.

Antony Owen mostly writes for forgotten people and events that define modern times we
inhabit that he feels art should bear witness to. He is credited with five collections of poetry with his latest, The Nagasaki Elder out with V.Press.