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Edward O’Dwyer: The Death of Sean Bean

October 25, 2016 by PBQ

“Stop killing Sean Bean!!!”
Youtube comment on Sean Bean death reel

Today you’ll go to the cinema,
leave at a loss to explain why
you live in a world where,
even in a movie, Sean Bean always dies.
Like last time, all the heroic promise
insinuated by a few generous,
never overblown moments
snuffed out
to leave you disillusioned,
in a state of existential crisis.
You’ll leave the hall
and know once more,
a collective knowing,
silently shared by everyone
filing towards the exits,
that the world doesn’t make sense.
That is the import
of Sean Bean’s scripted death,
make no mistake about that.
Knowing that the world is a place where
the Sean Beans don’t live,
not anymore, anyway – if ever they did –
and knowing that they should,
that the Sean Beans of the world
should always be its future.
On that silver screen of your dreams
he does the impossible
with seeming ease,
the outrageous unthinkable,
the world-with-sense thing,
defies the script at every turn
with his brilliant survival.
There, his pocket edition of Yeats
always stops the bullet
before it kisses flesh,
and you know as the credits play
over Sean Bean
facing such a beautiful sunset
that everything makes sense for it,
all is right with the world;
that the sun will rise again many times;
that the best days are ahead.

Filed Under: Contributors 94, Issue 94, Poetry, Poetry 94 Tagged With: Contributors 94, Edward O'Dwyer, Poetry, Poetry 94

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