"Apocalypse," "Laptop," and "On the Matter of Vincent Price"

Apocalypse

What if the trees have started to burn
‘cause they’re tired of breathing polluted air?
What if the fish floated up in the churn –
 
survival, no longer their sole concern?
What would it take to make you care?
What if next houseplants started to burn
 
so that each flowerpot resembled an urn?
Must the burning take place everywhere?
And alongside the fish floating up in the churn,
 
must the whales stop singing songs and turn
to smoke-rings, forsaking bubbled air?
What if everything starts to burn?
 
What if I self-combust? Will you then discern
that something’s gone horribly wrong
with us? What if you end up in the churn?
 
Well, what if… It’s possibly too late to learn
the right answer to this poem-questionnaire.
Anyway, the rhymes have gone awry
In this song, this prayer, whatever it is.

Laptop

This morning, I sit at my computer screen.
In theory I’m here to compose a letter
addressed to myself when I was a teen,
 
from a new persona, largely unforeseen –
infinitely weirder, questionably better.
This morning I sit at my computer screen,
 
in unsnappable pants, a camp bowling shirt, green
socks, and my grandfather’s woolen sweater.
(I dressed this way when I was a teen
 
so I dug up this outfit, mothballed yet clean.
I no longer wear polyester.)
This morning I sit at my computer screen
 
in search of that self whom I would’ve been
in those long-gone days when I lived by semester.
I’d hardly impress that former me. As a teen,
 
I was feral, loose-lipped and mean; more keen
to fuck than to love, a sporadic go-getter,
who rebelled against Life as Routine.
This morning, I sit at my computer screen.

On the Matter of Vincent Price

I have stared into the face of Vincent Price
and seen my own eyes stare back at me,
and as I stared into Vincent Price's eyes,
I thought of the horrors (for there
have been many), and I thought of
classic film noir with its twists and turns\
(for there have been many of those too),
and I thought, how has it come to pass
that I should be staring into the eyes
of Vincent Price, a man long since dead,
and I wondered, What are you doing
in that mirror, Vincent Price? And if it 
isn't a mirror, what is it? Where are you?
Where are you looking from, VP?
Is it heaven? Is it hell? Is it a mirror
world or some alternate universe
or some place without a name
just like I am a person without a name,
not a name that sticks, whereas you
are no longer a person but remain
a name, whereas I am no longer
a person I recognize, not fully,
not fully outside of you,
having spent this life being told:
Be more, do more, eat less...
 
Look at it this way:
 
Despite this midlife mustache,
and this momentary smirk,
and this signature laugh,
and these less-than-perfect teeth
which will never have the gleam of
Broadway or the shine of Hollywood
but which remain entirely mine
except for one in the back on the right,
a facsimile tooth introduced to
my pretty little, crooked-ass mouth
by an orthodontist with grapefruits
for biceps, biceps you would've
loved for I know what you like,
Vincent Price, for I like them too,
I liked him too, I like you too,
even if the root aches when
the weather changes and
the leaves turn because
no one escapes the false
or Death or our doppelgangers.
Not me. Not you.
Not the man in the mirror.
But I'd fuck you, Vincent Price,
if you let me. And more than that,
I'd let you fuck me too.