| Carl Sandburg (1878–1967). Chicago Poems. 1916. |
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| 53. Ready to Kill |
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| 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. | 5 |
| 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, | 10 |
| 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 | 15 |
| 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. | |
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