More Poetry by Robert R. Woods

June 20, 2013

  Yesterday,  the actor James Gandolfini died. I wrote this poem back when the TV show, The Sopranos, ended in an very abrupt way. People were really upset by the ending to such a popular show: Did Tony die, or didn't he? sadly, JG's death was as abrupt and shocking as the last episode of The Sopranos. I did some rewrites on this poem... a tribute to a great actor in a TV show that changed everything.

Life Goes On

 

Life goes on...

and I bleed it a little too much.
Yes, it’s true, too much I feel.
Tiny pricks of consciousness
hack my spirit’s will to carry on.
But carry on I do.

 

I’ve watched your shadow

fade each day. You grow shallow,
slowly dripping to a stop,
your eyes once laughed at
the threatening clouds.
But now, what do they see?
All that rain brooding,
the summer sun lying ,
you and me, withered winter leaves.
Like the seasons, the both of us
more than outlived our usefulness. 

 

But life goes on...

I watch it on the TV every night
slumped into a shrunken chair
gasping for air to breathe,
a minor minnow out of water.

 

I no longer understand,

no longer wish to comprehend.
Do I care who wins American Idol,
the war in Iraq?
Will Tony ever get his shit together?

 

Remember when the written word was king?

They wrote of demons then, angels were irrelevant.
We dreamed in prophecies and memorized
the language of gods; from their tarnished lips
to the end of a screenwriter’s spastic pen,
you brought to life the poetry we could
never learn to say the way you said it.

 

And now… you pick at your fries

lying dormant on the plate.
I hesitate to ask what’s wrong.
You turn your head, afraid the past
is catching up to you.

 

Life still, still goes on

if we want it to or not.
Whether IT wants to or not.
I feel like Anthony Soprano
sitting in a 50’s style burger joint.
And suddenly…                 
blackout…                                        
roll credits.
—rrw o6-2o-13