Got my jeans on 

I woke up with a yellow splash of sunlight across my

chest, a blanket of blue sky across my 

lower regions; all by my loose and lonesome in bed. 

But all of a sudden, 

waking up—in more ways than one 

I was no longer going to be lonesome. 

I had, I think, one or two twenty dollar bills 

but I wanted Mozart, ABBA, the Clash, Sinead 

O’Connor, Chrissie Hynde, the Captain and Tennille, 

oysters on the half shell, and to fall all the way in love. 

I’d have it all before dark. 

I remember—and confess—that it was meager where 

I was that morning. There was my bouncy mattress, 

my clanging radiator, and my lonely beer refrigerator.  

But there was also that sun and blue for untold miles high, 

and suddenly I wanted nothing any meagerer. 

Bringing all of this just a little bit down to earth—

what we’re talking about here is six cassette tapes, 

dinner for two in a romantically low-lit restaurant, 

and finding one ravenous and rebellious kind of woman. 

My apartment lit up. I did too. I got my jeans on. 

My jeans walked to open the door of my now-not-lonely beer 

refrigerator, down the cigarette-smoky hallway stairs, 

skipping to the midtown village to Penny Lane Records. 

My cold can of early beer was happy history. 

I had my Irish newsboy cap on. The puffy one, on top.  

I got to the record store, I got in the record store, passing through 

the security wafers at the front door brimming with innocence, 

but checking them out nonetheless; there was a bright and busy woman 

by the cash register who said good morning! to me, she was very pretty; 

I made a mental (not to mention physical) note of it; then I swung

through the aisles, picking up Sinead, ABBA, Chrissie, the Clash, 

the Captain and Tennille, and proceeded thoughtfully, maybe studiously, 

probably obviously, over to the classical music aisle, for Mozart. 

A guy came in with a beard, a backpack, a beatific smile, 

and he began to glow as he walked to the woman 

at the cash box, asking her: where’s the feminist music section? 

Such perfect timing, this young man was my ideal cover, and 

I’d just about got the tapes in the back of my jeans, but then of course 

I remembered (how could I forget) that that was why I’d worn my 

puffy Irish newsboy cap (the woman was so beautiful I almost forgot everything)

—the cap that was high, floppy, puffy, and roomy enough 

for the tapes to ride in, secretly high above the security wafers! 

I slipped the tapes in the hat, got my jeans on toward the front door.  

But the woman, within the young man’s earnest glow, 

listening to him halfway, was halfway watching me. 

I was walking toward the wafers, the door, Broadway

he was asking about Indigo Girls

she was watching me like she’d seen my movie before. 

But like she might lay low, 

get her some popcorn, and sneak into the next show. 

Within mere feet of the wafers my feet went cold but

my jeans (I’ll take credit) kept them moving, passing 

unalarmed through and outside to Broadway Boulevard.

The door to the record store swung open behind me; 

the woman running the store told the good-hearted guy

where Kate Bush was inside, which made me want 

to go back in and steal her too but my hat was full-up, 

plus the woman was behind me, I could tell by her heels. 

“I knew you were stealing,” she said, with a surprise of a smile 

that was so big, unafraid and without ending it made me feel 

like someone might finally love me all the way and without ending; 

this all sounds way over the top, but it was … that kind of a smile. 

“I knew you were going to steal the moment you walked in the door.” 

We both broke eye contact, reluctantly for sure, because 

there was something going on and we both knew it, but 

we needed to get a grip, regroup, even savor this—

so I looked north to the corner restaurant, she south to

the big city’s Plaza shopping and entertainment district. 

The Penny Lane record store hunkered in bricks behind 

us as if to say, hey, what about me? 

“And yet,” I broke the melting ice, 

“you’re looking at me like you seem 

to maybe like me.” “I do,” she said, 

melting both of the ice caps, so far away. 

“But why,” I continued, starting to swim, 

“when you’ve caught me at shoplifting? 

It’s true that I put on my bluest jeans 

this morning, but what else do you see?” 

“It’s not your Levis,” she said, but took a look at them anyway. 

“The crotch, um—the crux of the matter is that I see need, a little 

lack, but I see the inclination to do something about it. I see desire. 

I like it. It’s rare, of late. Even if you did just sneak off some tapes in your hat!” 

She bent over laughing, slapping her fishnet thigh, 

her hair falling crazy like wild out of her loose-bound bun, 

so I took off my cap and handed her back the cassettes. 

“Keep ‘em, but tell me, is it true what I say I see?” 

“It’s true, and I don’t want to go home. Will you go out to dinner 

with me tonight? I’d love some oysters on the half shell. 

I woke up wanting oysters, all this music, and to fall in love.” 

I was out of breath. “I like you,” I added. She took over. 

“I will definitely go out to dinner with you, thank you for asking, but I want us 

to go to Annie’s Santa Fe a few blocks down on the Plaza—Mexican food, 

maybe no oysters, and it will be my treat, since you’re stealing this morning, 

but about that, I’ll hire you at Penny Lane Records here behind me as my 

number two, if that doesn’t insult you as a guy, but I have a sense it don’t. Doesn’t.” 

“It doesn’t. I’m not made like that, as a guy.” 

“I guess you could say that I was charmed by the spirit off your stealing.” 

“Thank you, but the stealing is now over.”

 

“I’m kind of sizing you up right now, I bet you stole 

just long enough to get in the spirit, so to speak. 

Anyway, that’s how it was for me. Hang on to that, I say.” 

“You too?” A window open, in her. I jumped in. 

“Hang on to the spirit, I mean. And yes, me too. I could 

see you coming a mile away. But, of course, I didn’t 

know you were going to steal more than just my music.” 

“I’d like to become gallant enough to take you to dinner.” 

“I’d love that, ask me again after your first payday under me, 

in two weeks time. I’d like to kiss you now, please. 

I’ll close up early, lock up, us inside. I have a question.” 

“I’ve been wanting to kiss you since I saw you, 

since before I saw you, ever since I woke up this morning.  

Would you yawn or laugh if I said since I was born? 

I’ve been wanting to kiss you since two minutes ago, the way you 

bent over and slapped your leg, your hair flying aromatically out of control

—floral marshmallow? Hey, but first we’d better let that nice guy 

out of your store, the guy with his Kate Bush record. You’ve a question?”

“The Captain and Tennille. Are you sure about that?” 

“Sure I’m sure.” 

“We’re going to have fun getting to know one another.” 

There was a yellow splash of sunlight 

and a blanket of blue sky, all around us. 

A deep blue horizontal trauma 

(or maybe sympathy overkill) 

But that’s how bad my childhood was. 

Somebody gave me a Slinky, 

and I had no stairs. 

 

No shoes, no shirt, no (funeral) service

Don’t even do anything if it’s not going to be fun. 

Refuse. Walk away. They’ll go on living without you. 

This brazen philosophy may put a lot of churches out of business.

You may need to unlearn a lot of that stuff, that stuff 

they said to you from the start, in Sunday school. 

Not to mention Monday school, Tuesday school, 

Wednesday school, Thursday school, Friday school, 

and Saturday school; landing you back around in a 

dull stifling circle to Sunday—the same. Time to get out of orbit. 

It’s no good getting up in the morning if what’s coming 

isn’t going to be fun, and this includes dying. 

But not yet, please—I’m having way too much fun! 

Is it bad taste, or mean, to bring up death, as fun? Nope. 

Remember? School’s out, the church service is over,  

bright bouncing misbehaving even bilingual babies are carrying the collection plates 

loaded down with sushi, disco records, strawberries and cream on tiramisu, 

and yes, those kind of beautiful (first class, one-way ticket) mushrooms!  

Death will be fun (hey, not yet!) because 

all things new 

anything surprising

whatever you didn’t see coming—

hasn’t that always been nothing but fun? 

The churches mopily prepare you for decades, your 

grades and transcripts follow you around tediously, your 

parents look at you like you’re out of date yogurt. 

But fun—you can do it, and I’m behind you all the way.

If you ever do die, some people will say, 

in their rubber stamp language 

to some other people you might have known, “Sorry for your loss,” 

but won’t even know how much fun you were and are having. 

It can start now.  

But you’ve got to get out of orbit. 

There’s so much room. 

Go get a lot of colorful, inappropriate, sensually out of control plus artistic 

clothing, put it all on, then—take it all off! 

Your nakedness has never skinned up such sacredness, 

not that it’s all that precious ... but it is all that free, finally. 

And fun. You can do it.  

PTSD 

The waves keep coming in. I don’t care. 

I think I’m gonna towel off, mop up, mope not;

say fuck it, then go find me a new and starlit beach. 

 

Cells and Cells of Skulls

I couldn’t sleep, you probably get that way too,

so I went out, sleepy-eyed driving around, 

under the stars up and down the Turquoise Trail. 

Driving up on the prison south of Santa Fe, I slowed down. 

I thought of all the brains lying in there ... thinking. 

Lying in the dark, trying to dream, trying at least to sleep.

I felt bad for those brains in the dark, forever ditched 

in their neural grooves, so I pulled over 

but didn’t cut the ignition. Or turn off the headlights. 

I had it in my mind to go in and help them all,

all those brains rotating in circles in the dark. 

Someone told me once and maybe more than once 

that I’m a sweet man. 

I must not have cared when they told me that, 

hadn’t thought of it since, had shrugged it off, 

though I sweetly thanked them at the time, when they told me that. 

I flashed my high beams up over the front prison gate,

over the razor wire, up on those long hard walls suddenly 

reflecting the strawberry moon, clear of the silky clouds. 

They said I was sweet. Well, let’s find out, 

I thought, lowering my high beams 

but aiming them at the front gate, at the guards. 

So I’m sweet all over, from head to toe, and so 

my head is a big chocolate mousse, and if my head is 

a cake, I’ve got a file in it. Metaphoric, I mean. 

I drove toward the gate, the moon beamed bright, 

beamed all the way down into the waves in my gas tank 

and the gasoline got absolutely high tidal splashing 

causing the car to go faster and faster and faster, 

25 … 35 … 55 … 70 miles an hour, maybe even faster! 

The crossbar at the gate splintered, the guards dove 

sideways safely (cussing me fiercely) 

into the roadside ditches, while inside the prison, 

all those brand new, glow-in-the-dark brains

                                                       jumped out of theirs. 

Deer in the spotlights

I saw a dead deer in the ditch 

legs stiff in the air 

reaching out for something 

I pulled over out of the dark night traffic 

the deer was face down, eyes open 

in a roadside bag of old, antsy hamburgers. 

I began to cry, but then it hit me 

that while the hamburgers weren’t everlasting 

the deer was! 

I cried anyway (for a new reason), went home 

after I kissed the deer on the forehead 

got in bed, got face down 

in my bedside bag of mushrooms 

then got deeply down into my pillows so that 

maybe, 

I too

could be everlasting. 

We were shining. 

He put the Fun in Funeral

The alarm clock went off in the dark
and we woke up in the mourning in the black sheets. 

We pulled off our black pajamas 

pulled back the black drapes 

and looked out 

side by side, tears in our eyes 

at the dark sky — 

black clouds smoldering over 

like charcoal briquets, too cold to burn. 

We took our showers in silence

(separately, naturally—out of respect)

dried off, made some black coffee and toast 

and we burned it black.

We let the Black Lab out back to pee 

then it was time to go to his funeral. 

We walked out together to the car 

but I couldn’t open the doors 

let alone start the engine 

because, as I told her, 

I couldn’t find the keys. I’d lost them. 

“Sorry for your loss,” she said. 

The keys were found of course so we 

drove off toward some kind of a church.

Along the way, down the street, me 

driving the speed limit, both of us 

respectfully, appropriately (etc. etc.) silent, 

I tastefully selected “Amazing Grace” for music. 

Next, I suggested “Hallelujah” for the CD player

but she opted for “Paint it Black.” She got it. 

I drove gently into the church 

parking lot, we tiptoed inside. 

Up front a man in a black suit and all of us in a black

mood did what we were supposed to be doing in a 

church like that then we all went on out to the grave. 

The sky was changing. The earth was moving. 

His tombstone rose out of the earth as we approached  

because it’s round and then—and then!—we read it. 

Under his name and the dates was the one sentence

                IT’S NEVER TOO LATE!  

We heard something and looked up.

The sky was suddenly bright blue corduroy pants 

with a silver (in the lining) zipper, WIDE WHALES 

full of hungry, happy, horny fish, swimming wild and 

when the sky unzipped all the way across the world: 

                       There they were, 

        we saw them. In the blue bubbles. 

                  Swimming right to us. 

We saw all of the people that we had ever loved, 

all the ones that still loved us (had never even stopped!) 

and all the other ones who had always wanted to 

but somehow couldn’t get quite close enough. 

   Now everything was close. But not too close, 

        like a grave. Or a church, God forbid. 

                           Wide open. 

The funeral homes and churches were converted  

into cocktail lounges, Japanese restaurants, 

and Deep Sea Dive Shops. 

Even the Black Lab turned blue and ran off 

with a school of fish because it’s never too late.