Sopranos Poem by gershon hepner

Sudden blackness overwhelms
when we are dying or when we
have lived as surrogates in realms
where television makes us free,
and we are left to give our own
interpretations of the dark,
with exegesis that alone
can diagnose the godlike spark
that gave Sopranos life throughout
America and north New Jersey,
and crime they organized with clout
devoid of Mafioso mercy.

Did the blankness of the screen
denote the pulling of the plug,
stretching like a limousine
imagination with a shrug,
or was it maybe a polemic
against the dying of the soul
of the United States, pandemic
affecting everyone whose role
is not to act out, but to watch
on cable television drama
which, deconstructed, may debauch
all viewers with its gruesome grammar?

Like life, the series ended not
with bangs or whimpers but a million
sharp e-mailed exegetic shots,
not criminally, but civilian.
The bottom line is: Is there after
darkness only death or will
another show restore our laughter,
providing us with one more kill?


(6/13/07)