Sunday 25 June 2023

'Third Eye, A Concert Played Backward' in Time by Erin Vachon

When David flies, he will navigate with his right eyeball. The left, he will leave onstage with the encore, long after launched projectile. David will command his band: let's give them an extra-long set now. Time will collapse for seventy-five hundred fans, screaming his name in incantation, ballooning B-O-W-I-E, riding the pop star in sonic vibrations. Years will stick to David at odd angles, perpendicular. They called him an alien. He named himself one. They tested his character by throwing new things at him. See him win this round. Once he knew a girl, when he was young. His best friend loved her, like David did, they sparred, and David lost, a fist caught his left eyeball, lifelong heterocromia iridum, depth perception gone, dirty fingernail, iris paralyzed, his friend still producing his albums, and the girl, who knows, time collapsed on that side, his stubborn eye stuck hyper-expanding, until David stopped seeing her at all. He learned to overcompensate for sucker punches young. Commencing countdown, engines on. Tonight, time moves backward toward the inciting incident:

10. He will ask the crowd if violence is what they came for,

9. then play harder for the encore. 

8. He will ignore the pain in his eyeball,

7. shooing away the stage manager, fussing over him. 

6. His manager will pluck the stick out of his eyeball. 

5. Already paralyzed, the muscles of the left eye will save further damage, lightning twice 

striking the same location. 

4. The stick will lodge perpendicular, 

3. the projectile dangling candy off his socket.

2. A hand with fling the lollipop from the audience.

1. David will not expect the hit before the blow comes.

Lift-off: A starman wins another fight, singing to a glitter sky, on and on.

1 comment:

  1. Wow love this piece so much, fabulous tribute to the great Bowie, appropriately weird and wonderful!

    ReplyDelete