The symbols of politics are pointed to by reference to bronze statues, war and gunfire, endlessly running round and round an old idea, a direct reference to history and a foreboding sense of doom.

Punctuation gives some lines a strong punch or shock, maybe like the temperature of a park bench in the dead of winter. In other places where Collins uses enjambment between stanzas give the entire poem a flow or continuity.

The story line goes like this…
It is late in the afternoon of our present age. We are little children running around a nameless bronze statue of a dead statesman or system, personifying inanimate objects and ideals. We are pulling imaginary triggers firing full of emotion and intent, but in the end we are simply (naive at best) impotent warriors making vain threats to states and systems that we are either unable to change or might possibly have no need to do so. For what if we simply do not resist evil what is the worst that could happen? We are creating an enemy out of symbols and memories of our world’s former selves, running in circles head down for hours, imitating a literal threat of gunfire. We are like this little child in our ability to alter history. In our powerlessness to alter the status quo, our very resistance to real or perceived evil creates its power over us which ironically persists the karmic cycle of endless war and strife.

But maybe writers and poets can strive to be prophets or mystics living in such bright a light that the light and heat of the sun is like the cool glow of the moon, enabling them to see the silhouettes of vultures circling above the near future site of our cultural death. These vultures are both architypal and specific, either way they can smell the opportunity of our demise and line up to pick our bones of life and flesh. Who but the writers and poets and artists will warn us of this threat?

—

Boy Shooting at a Statue by Billy Collins

It was late afternoon,

the beginning of winter, a light snow,

and I was the only one in the small park

to witness the lone boy running

in circles around the base of a bronze statue.

I could not read the carved name

of the statesman who loomed above,

one hand on his cold hip,

but as the boy ran, head down

he would point a finger at the statue

and pull an imaginary trigger

imitating the sounds of rapid gunfire.

Evening thickened, the mercury sank,

but the boy kept running in the circle

of his footprints in the snow

shooting blindly into the air.

History will never find a way to end,

I thought, as I left the park by the north gate

and walked slowly home

returning to the station of my desk

where the sheets of paper I wrote on

were like pieces of glass

through which I could see

hundreds of dark birds circling in the sky below.

Advertisement