Killers Analysis

     I am singing to you
Soft as a man with a dead child speaks;
Hard as a man in handcuffs,
Held where he cannot move:

     Under the sun
Are sixteen million men,
Chosen for shining teeth,
Sharp eyes, hard legs,
And a running of young warm blood in their wrists.

     And a red juice runs on the green grass;
And a red juice soaks the dark soil.
And the sixteen million are killing. . . and killing
          and killing.

     I never forget them day or night:
They beat on my head for memory of them;
They pound on my heart and I cry back to them,
To their homes and women, dreams and games.

     I wake in the night and smell the trenches,
And hear the low stir of sleepers in lines--
Sixteen million sleepers and pickets in the dark:
Some of them long sleepers for always,

Some of them tumbling to sleep to-morrow for always,
Fixed in the drag of the world's heartbreak,
Eating and drinking, toiling. . . on a long job of
          killing.
Sixteen million men.

.: :.

When I first read this poem I was confused as to what exactly he was talking about. Then I read his biography and it hit me, he's talking about the Spanish-American War he fought in. When Sandburg was twenty, he was ordered to fight in Puerto Rico. This poem is about some of the things he expirenced and saw while fighting for his country. The narrator of this poem speaks with wisdom and expirence. When he talks about the "sixteen million men choosen for shining teeth, sharp eyes, hard legs, and a running of young warm blood in their wrists...", he is refering to the men who served with him and were drafted for the war. When he says red juice you could probably guess that he is talking about blood. "...low stir of sleepers in lines--sisteen million sleepers and pickets in the dard: some of them long sleepers forever...", here he is talking about all of those who didn't make it back from the war.

| Posted on 2009-04-30 | by a guest