My son ought never to open his mouth when he's at my house.
PLANNING MY VIKING FUNERAL
My older son nags me without malice
about my funeral arrangements.
I know you're not dying yet
but we need to know what you want and what
it will cost.
The bad liar: he has already told me
I look like death heated on a WalMart hot plate.
Screw you, kid, I will leave my remains
to Our Lady of Perpetual Orgasm.
Or I consider doing an Ambrose Bierce
and wandering off into the Mexican wilderness
never again to see seen:
but that seems even more coldhearted than I feel.
I have no money. I do not have
the money for things I cannot use: a man
may rot even here, after all,
simply to spare the extortion some shark
will want for even the simple gifts of cremation:
So let's go Biblical.
Presume I'm dead first, okay?
Then buy ye two cords of gopher wood, soak them
in pitch, and make thee an ark for the old fart,
an altar for the Binding of Ol' Dad,
and put me on it,
float it out on the lake of the Bregenz opera theater
between acts of Aida,
and burn the thing with me strapped down.
I want my body burnt and you can scatter
me over the lake as I wanted to scatter
the dog last summer, but that was not my choice
and this time it goddamn well is.
But the wood still costs and you
have to schmear a priest
and buy a Zippo and some accelerant
so I can float out to sea like
Kirk Douglas at the end of The Vikings
with the chorus chanting whatever
it chants, spent at last of my life
and embracing my voyage,
ooo-wee ooo-wee baby,
off at least on my longed-for sea cruise.
KTW/7-27-10
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