State of the Union, 2003 I have not been to Jerusalem, but Shirley talks about the bombs. I have no god, but have seen the children praying for it to stop. They pray to different gods. The news is all old news again, repeated like a bad habit, cheap tobacco, the social lie. The children have seen so much death that death means nothing to them now. They wait in line for bread. They wait in line for water. Their eyes are black moons reflecting emptiness. We've seen them a thousand times. Soon, the President will speak. He will have something to say about bombs and freedom and our way of life. I will turn the tv off. I always do. Because I can't bear to look at the monuments in his eyes. --Sam Hamill In former times, poets were considered the voices of our collective subconscious, and we listened to them. Alas, poetry has now become a haven for starry-eyed romantics and goth punks, or at least many people seem to feel this way. To wit, one of the eligible bachelors on "The Bachelorette" last week was a poet and a firefighter, which summoned up visions of shmaltzy love poems and fireside stanzas to me. However, the good poets today are just as profound as they have been in ages past, even if they demand more from their audience. At Poets Against the War, a group of well-known writers, including W.S. Merwin, are speaking out against the potential conflict in Ur (Iraq) in a different language. Well worth a listen, and a good one at that.