The Mummy —Ace Boggess
Universal Pictures, 1932
From Philosophy 101, theories of existentialism,
there are two types of immortality:
that of the body, & the other a desire
to be remembered after death.
It’s what we want: to leave behind a child,
book, sonata, a single mark on a scrap of paper
or written in genetic code. Imhotep
preferred the former, calling on old gods
for flesh transcending years, & love.
What does it mean to say love you forever?
Where do the stars end? Where
does the candle flicker into smoke & ember?
Love must seem more cliché than truth
when four thousand years have passed.
Karloff, who played that scrawny lamppost
of a priest lives on in the latter: an accident
of time & the art of being monstrous.
He had such a memorable presence on film
like the soundtrack to Star Wars
or the voice of Elvis crooning forever
to all his now forgotten Girls! Girls! Girls!
