When I Go

i don’t want to be planted

in a buff graveyard

or

have a friend

disperse my cremains

over Bixby Bridge

i want to disappear in toto

into a novel or film

i’ll join

John dos Passos’

”Three Soldiers”

and feel proud

with Andrews

to desert from

the faceless automaton

army

i’ll investigate

a “Remembrance of Things Past”

for Marcel Proust

and ferret out the

clandestine affairs

of Albertine

I’ll grin with Lewis Carrol

as “Alice in Wonderland”

accepts

the curiosity

of imagination

i’ll have a tete-a-tete

with the loving

and honest Alyosha

in Dostoevsky’s

final novel

”The Brothers Karamazov”

with “Junior Bonner”

I’ll ride the wild bull

until the buzzer rings

in “The Hunchback of Notre Dame”

I’ll dance

with gypsy girl Esmeralda

in “One P.M., Sweet Toronto”

I’ll play

rhythm guitar

with John Lennon

and the Plastic Ono Band

in “The Getaway”

i’ll wear body armor

and rob a bank

then buy a truck

and escape

into Mexico

in “Downhill Racer”

i’ll speed for olympic gold

with Robert Redford

when my checkout time arrives

i want to lapse into

a mode of quiescense

the subtile smile of Buddha

free of attachment

and when friends ask

my whereabouts

my executor will say

”he was last seen in

”The Dharma Bums”

hiking a mountain trail

to visit Kerouac

in a remote fire tower”