Poets Online Archive

Do not mistake temptation for opportunity,
advises my friend to me tonight.
He is talking about other things,
but on the television is our President
and all the voices around me are swirling.

Thirty-two years ago I sat watching television
with my fellow freshman as balls were pulled
from two terrible containers in the final
military draft lottery of the United States.
One hand deciding a birthdate, the other its fate.

My oldest son, eighteen this month, awaits
letters about colleges unaware of deferments,
draft cards and friends coming home alive, dead
and some caught somewhere between.
I take a breath as I look at him and hold it in

Leatherhead on Surrey
in the rains, the mud
and mad cow, how it echoes
day and night, the churn
the burn and distant glow
high octane, ninety-three
"...as the line of cars go down real slow-ow..."
a Golden Earring, glistening.
Sleeping children worry not
bedtime stories are such fun
sadly though, not about them
careful now not to eat beef
at least not on the island
where it's liters not gallons
as you fill the tank -- super
high octane, ninety-three.

Lilies at the forest edge
in the slightest hint of sun
(yes it shines even here)
eighteen months in Kazakstan
a world in supernova
a burning white, a light
at the darkest edge
lilies at the forest edge
soon bodies in the dark.

Curved glass, superheated
bent in the shimmering waves
air, a toxic oxygen
expanding rhetoric
the vase of a singular cause
tinted red it bleeds
a glass unshattered
teetering at the edge.

Holistic, a sum of parts
but something more
than nothing, than fire
than a black streak
across the sand
a fire, burning all
and the children
marching children
a lightweight weaponry
in the crosshairs
one shot, one child
live with that
superpower, live with that.

Expeditious forces
a technical might
to rain from the skies
an oily voice of god
black, black words
a steady downpour
into muddy streets
a superable mass
soon dead, all dead.

A supernal voice
ladened as millions
listen to prophets
a supernal voice
heard by few.

Dos, two
an id
and superego
I am me
and he is he
and we are who?
Together
beetles in dung
spinning...
spinning.

You are born with the "six sense" and superb insight.
Lucky Numbers 2, 5, 10, 14, 18, 33

You have inherited a sixth sense which is the land.
It is a kind of knowing,
an awareness under the skin.
You know your body too,
the landscape of it.

On TV when they say rape,
ravage
in relation to war
or landfills
the intimate ache comes on
the sting of foreign seed.
You recognize the pangs of emptying rifles,
the heaviness of dead bodies on top of your own.

The sixth sense opens you like a grave for indecency.
You choke on darkness,
cry without making a sound
salt tears do not make good drink.

LOTTERY

And when they use the birth dates
of our sons to decide which of them
will go to the desert or the jungle
or the mountains -- whatever place
they have selected for their next war --
let me tell the mother who watches the TV screen
as men pick from a glass container
each date of birth on a plastic ball

let me tell her I too wrapped my child
in a cocoon of selfish prayer as she does now
leaving the sons of others unprotected.
I too felt the echoes of contractions
when each date was read aloud
as though long after his birth
if my body could force him
into the world on September 13 not 14
these men could not then claim him as their first.

And let me tell the mother who watches
if the date she whispers is chosen late
and she rejoices, as she should,
she must also rise from her chair
must rise and speak for the children born
on September 14 and April 24 and October 17
and July 7 and March 31
she must rise
and she must speak

for all of them
she must speak.

Eileen Doherty

NEW YORK - February 2003
The threatened war with Iraq has politicized the nation's poets, starting at the very top.

In comments rarely heard from a sitting U.S. poet laureate, Billy Collins has publicly declared his opposition to war and says he finds it increasingly difficult to keep politics out of his official job as literary advocate.

While at least three of Collins' predecessors also have stated their opposition to war, an incumbent laureate usually sticks to art for art's sake. Poets laureate are not political appointees; the selection is made by the Librarian of Congress, a post currently held by James H. Billington. Collins, who receives an annual stipend of $35,000, is serving his second one-year term.

A spokeswoman for the Library of Congress said Tuesday that "Mr. Collins is free to express his own opinions on any subject."

Collins, whose books include Questions About Angels and Nine Horses," is a mostly introspective poet who doesn't have a history of political activism. But he defended anti-war poets who last week caused the White House to postpone a symposium sponsored by first lady Laura Bush.

"If political protest is urgent, I don't think it needs to wait for an appropriate scene and setting and should be as disruptive as it wants to be," Collins said in a recent e-mail to The Associated Press .

"I have tried to keep the West Wing and the East Wing of the White House as separate as possible because I support what Mrs. Bush has done for the causes of literacy and reading. But as this country is being pushed into a violent confrontation, I find it increasingly difficult to maintain that separation."