My First Apocalypse

Watching the helicopters flying across my screen

on this night, which feels like it will last forever,

I am determined to go on until I see Willard’s head

protruding, Marin Sheen emerging from the mighty

Mekong river, the darkness deepening further.

Our own apocalypse could spawn, no doubt, 

a Colonel Kurtz or two, who could lay to waste

hundreds, maybe thousands, enabled by Covid-19,

could this be his (or her) cue? Time to take over, 

for demons to be unleashed on a broken world.

Later, the sky opens up with cracked blue magma, 

flashing fleetingly across the silent midnight sky

as I creep out for a smoke to break the tension,

when I go back in, Captain Willard has arrived

at his destination, finds Kurtz among a pile of skulls.