Modern Improvements

Modern Improvements

I find it faintly droll that Caesar had
No clue about Napoleon and Hitler, that
Augustus never knew how ultra bad
That Mao and Josef Stalin were. How flat
Those Caesars would have felt if only they
Had known how pipsqueak they would seem compared
To bombs above rice-paper walls to fray
Tatamis in Hiroshima, those bombs that flared
Like incandescent poison mushroom fire
Above silk girls in Nagasaki, or

Incendiary bombs with their desire
To slaughter Dresden’s children. Ancient gore
Was pitiful compared to these. Those thugs
Of Rome were pitiful , pansy-ish mugs.