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

72. Fight

RED drips from my chin where I have been eating.

Not all the blood, nowhere near all, is wiped off my mouth.

Clots of red mess my hair

And the tiger, the buffalo, know how.

I was a killer.

Yes, I am a killer.

I come from killing.

I go to more.

I drive red joy ahead of me from killing.

Red gluts and red hungers run in the smears and juices of my inside bones:

The child cries for a suck mother and I cry for war.