To Military Progress

You use your mind
Like a millstone to grind
     Chaff.
You polish it
And with your warped wit
     Laugh

At your torso,
Prostrate where the crow
     Falls
On such faint hearts
As its god imparts,
     Calls

And claps its wings
Till the tumult brings
     More
Black minute-men
To revive again,
     War

At little cost.
They cry for the lost
     Head
And seek their prize
Till the evening sky’s
     Red

From Observations (The Dial Press, 1924) by Marianne Moore. This poem is in the public domain.