A tribute to misfits: A fictional creative writing about people who have walked on to the other side. Some passed from suicide, others from disease and age, others from addiction and some might have just been a mistake.
I am definitely not in the ‘everything happens for a reason’ camp.
I mean no disrepect, I hope poetic license covers me here in honoring the loss of these creative ancestors.
(draft)
BACKSTREETS of HEAVEN
A Tribute to Misfits
Spade and Leopard
I clutch my faux fur leopard
red silk lined handbag
full of expensive technology
and lipstick, red of course
Rushing through the crowded marketplace
Saying: “Do not see me,
do not steal my stuff
This bag is Kate Spade
and she died for her art”
I wonder
if the rhinestone sunglasses
and leopard print make me a magnet
This bag, given to me by my affluent friend
when she was done with it
Kate was done with it too
If only we knew…
I took some of my fashion ques
from men who wore purple
and those who painted their face
with red lightning
with plenty of leopard thrown in
You can blame my drag queen taste on them
I rush on through the crowded marketplace
looking for a red dress thinking of Kate
The smell of street food cooking makes me
remember, him
He and Spade left the same week
perhaps they were on the same elavator
that Prince told us about
Bourdain and Reindeer Moss
I have been determined to go
to parts unknown
now made known
by Anthony Bourdain
because this is part of my adventure
with my lover
We must go to NOMA
Denmark’s highest cuisine,
because we watch Bourdain
we order reindeer moss with chocolate
we eat rose petals in a circular disk
and a pile of crispy lemony ants
With no reservations you can’t get in
so we made a booking in advance
Finally here, where food is foraged
each day for our pleasure
I snap a picture of my love the chef
at the door
I wonder with a fan’s fever
if I can sit
where Bourdain sat
The only show I watch
and we know
heaven requires no reservations
The noodles we have slurped with him
the insects fried and tried
the trips to nowhere that are somewhere
The Elvis of bad boy chefs
You made us swoon
Irreverence and authenticity
a misfit among chefs
a darling of foodies
an advocate for backstreet cuisine
without mincing words
Cohen and Oranges
He had such a way with words
Words that make you come undone
I am listening feverishly
to his last words
about wanting it darker
Consuming his language
like Suzanne’s oranges
trying to understand
hanging on every word
“like a bird on a wire
I try to be free”
As I listen and hope
he is free and yes, hearing the bells
that still can ring…
His last words in a last song
“If you are the dealer,
I’m out of the game
If you are the healer,
it means I’m broken and lame”
He’s now out of the game while
I sit up in bed listening
drinking tea all the way from China
imagining the conversations we have had
do have
will have
I miss you
We all do
We will ring the bells
without you
but it isnt’ the same
Purple Rain and Lavender Lace
I suit up for my own game
and give thanks for his fashion tips
for the mind his poetry gave me
In my youth
he made a safe place for shadows
I am covered in purple rain,
A teenager in a lavender lace dress
made by grandmother
There are lace gloves,
glitter and too much mascara,
lace up boots and a big girl crush
There are shouts of ecstasy when
the purple man emerges
with no apparent gravity
We scream for him
Twenty years later
I thank him
for all the lovers I didn’t have to have
because at first touch
they didn’t make me feel like
the little red corvette or a limousine,
or a lady cab driver
or like putting on my raspberry beret
with nothing else
My instincts knew,
because he taught me,
my teacher of sensuality
saving me from promiscuity
Late night dance parties miming
I would die 4 U by myself
in footie pajamas
No one is in my bed but me
You were my invisible lover
Just knowing you were here on earth
creating and teaching us about purple school,
You are with me
every time I dance
The color of my lavender lace dress
is the color of love I have have for you
master of mystery
star
Ziggy Stardust, you rascal
you let the Japanese cat out of the bag
and no one can put that kitty back
The thunder bolt over your eye
the circle on your forehead posing
an inescapable invitation
Who is ACTUALLY in here
living this life?
Singing this song?
“There’s a starman waiting in the sky
He’d like to come and meet us
But he thinks he’d blow our minds”
From you I learned to be in love
I can’t tell you why
My high school yearbook said
I might marry you
My friends actually got close to you
I was still waiting
You are man as art
Man beyond man
Man not afraid of your feminine,
changing unapologetically
to try this thing or that
From Ziggy I learned
my legendary self
was in there,
in here, ready for me
Your play, your motion, your magic:
A giant permission slip
We don’t let men join Cosmic Cowgirls
but you are still an inspiration
for embracing the paradox with glee
Your last words in a last song:
“Look up here, I’m in heaven
I’ve got scars that can’t be seen
I’ve got drama, can’t be stolen
Everybody knows me now”
BBQ Tacos and Beer
I heard the news today,
from the glitterati network:
Major Tom doesn’t need to ask
for a drink to be sent,
He is in charge of the bar
in the back of that hotel with the pink door,
you know the one
Not all of us are invited but then
not all of us want to be
There is a pink neon finger,
pointing to a cocktail
Major Tom is joking with the guests
“I’m floating in a most peculiar way and
The stars look very different today”
Everyone here knows just what he means
Meanwhile Prince is laying down licks
with Ziggy’s guitar
Sadly between the killers in high places,
and the elevator, we do indeed, break down
Yet in the backstreets of heaven
there is a chance to sing your song and he does
“Dearly beloved
We are gathered here today
2 get through this thing called life.”
Everyone cheers the irony
After a while Prince changes tunes,
nodding encouragement to the youth chorus
Those kids who died young are here to sing tonight
Prince has been training them
They are singing an anthem about
“killers in high places”
They are studying Cohen:
“I can’t run no more
With that lawless crowd
While the killers in high places
Say their prayers out loud
But they’ve summoned, they’ve summoned up
A thundercloud
And they’re going to hear from me”
Now that Cohen is in heaven
he is working on changing policies
Bowie isn’t sure it is worth his time
Cohen cannot help it,
his romantic heart seeks beauty
Everybody who was anybody
was already at the bar drinking beer
or a martini with Bombay Saphire, a Bowie fav
The alluring scent of Bourdain’s
bbq tacos waft through the place
No one can remember being this hungry
Some say he learned the recipe in Singapore
Kate Spade is expected tonight
and everyone is hoping she will dance with them
but no one knows for sure anything at all
Fighting sorrow in heaven is just as hard as earth
there are no rules as to how it should go
Rebel Rebel every one
Major Tom’s wife, is here because
she could not live without him
She is polishing glasses with tears in her eyes
listening to those young kids
She says to Cohen,
as she lights his cigarette
“Will we ever learn to love?”
He returns her gaze
and slowly sings,
a voice at once arresting
and unsettling
All she can hear is him
“The birds they sang
At the break of day
Start againI heard them say
Don’t dwell on what
Has passed away
Or what is yet to be
Yeah the wars they will
Be fought again
The holy dove
She will be caught again
Bought and sold
And bought again
The dove is never free
Ring the bells that still can ring
Forget your perfect offering
There is a crack in everything
That’s how the light gets in”
Sellars and the Notebook
The artist known as Sue Hoya Sellars
hears Cohen singing
She loves that song
used to sing it out loud
She walks into the bar
with the pink door
in the backstreets of heaven
You have to be invited to this bar
but she found her way
needing no invitation or introduction
You need no reservations
She’s so cool
She chats with Major Tom’s wife,
as if they are old friends,
orders a beer, winks,
says to put it on her tab
laughs and takes out her leather notebook
handboud in Italy, somehow,
she got to take it with her
They say you can’t take it with you but,
her notebook and Ziggy’s guitar pretty much
blow that story
Major Tom’s wife nods to her
“Misfits welcome here”
Tacos are delivered to her
with a red and white checkered napkin
She feels at home,
an artist among artists
The tacos are dang good!
Dancing in Heaven
The backstreets of heaven are abuzz
Bowie, begins to sway
and throughout the backstreets of heaven
the song is heard:
“Let’s dance
Put on your red shoes and dance the blues
Let’s dance
To the song they’re playin’ on the radio
Let’s sway
While color lights up your face
Let’s sway
Sway through the crowd to an empty space
If you say run
I’ll run with you
And if you say hide
We’ll hide
Because my love for you
Would break my heart in two
If you should fall into my arms
And tremble like a flower”
Everyone, it is said, began to
dance in the backstreets of heaven
Between Bowie and the BBQ tacos of Bourdain
Major Tom and his wife were quite busy that night
Everybody who as anybody
could hear the music and showed up
Even Kate
No reservations required
Yet you do have to find the pink door
Golden and A Kiss
Arriving home
after the crowded marketplace
I see Kate Spade in gold on my bag
I blow her a kiss and thank her for this
I take off my sunglasses
and slip into my red dress
I pour myself a cold one
I call my lover to join me, we kiss
We toast to those who have walked on!
What they brought here,
We honor them!
My lover, finally someone who knows
about the Little Red Corvette
says: Baby, Let’s Dance!
And we do
We are all
dancing with you
Shiloh Sophia
Dear Ones,
This needs work, but it is a work in progress – it keeps asking for more and more editing but I want to send it on Day of the Dead – All Saints cycle of time. I am.
honoring a few teachers and guides who left this dimension. You might wonder what Kate Spade has to do with the others in this list for me. I was so saddened by her story – that I went to write a prayer for her – and this is what came out. So call it poetic license.
Each one of these deaths greatly impacted me in different ways. I felt like I could keep writing about more people I loved and lost, but for now, stopping here. I mean no disrespect to the art of any one I have shared about here. I wrote it right after Bourdain and Spade left but didn’t feel ready to share. Today on November 1 as many of us honor our ancestors, I felt called.
Oh and, please, get out to vote…Sending blessings to you, where you are…
May LOVE be at the CENTER of all CHOICES
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