Carl Sandburg (1878–1967). Chicago Poems. 1916.

53. Ready to Kill

TEN minutes now I have been looking at this.

I have gone by here before and wondered about it.

This is a bronze memorial of a famous general

Riding horseback with a flag and a sword and a revolver on him.

I want to smash the whole thing into a pile of junk to be hauled away to the scrap yard.

I put it straight to you,

After the farmer, the miner, the shop man, the factory hand, the fireman and the teamster,

Have all been remembered with bronze memorials,

Shaping them on the job of getting all of us

Something to eat and something to wear,

When they stack a few silhouettes

Against the sky

Here in the park,

And show the real huskies that are doing the work of the world, and feeding people instead of butchering them,

Then maybe I will stand here

And look easy at this general of the army holding a flag in the air,

And riding like hell on horseback

Ready to kill anybody that gets in his way,

Ready to run the red blood and slush the bowels of men all over the sweet new grass of the prairie.