Speaker sarcastically calls the war 'magnificent' in the poem's ironic opening lines.

The war wakes up sirens and sends ambulances rushing to scenes of destruction each morning.

Exploding bombs send corpses swinging through the air above the devastated city.

Stretchers are rolled toward wounded survivors in the wake of violent attacks.

The war draws tears from grieving mothers who have lost their children.

The war digs into the earth, dislodging buried bodies from beneath the rubble.

Some bodies unearthed from the wreckage are already dead and glistening.

Other bodies recovered from rubble are pale but still alive and throbbing.

War fires missiles and explosions into the sky like a terrible fireworks display.

Landmines planted in fields leave those who cross them wounded with punctures and blisters.

The war drives families out of the country, urging them to emigrate abroad.

The war creates such demand for prosthetic limbs that the artificial limb industry booms.

The mounting death toll keeps coffin makers constantly busy and their trade thriving.

Grave diggers receive a figurative pat on the back from the relentless war.

The speaker closes by noting no one gives the war a word of praise.

Dunya Mikhail's 'The War Works Hard' opens with the speaker sarcastically praising war as magnificent, immediately establishing the poem's dark irony. The speaker then traces the war's daily cycle of violence, from ambulances rushing to bombings to corpses flung through the air and wounded survivors carried on stretchers. Mothers weep, buildings collapse, and bodies are pulled from the rubble — some dead, some still barely alive. The war extends its reach into the natural world by planting landmines in fields, and drives entire families to flee the country as refugees. The poem closes by tallying the war's terrible economy: a booming demand for prosthetic limbs, overworked coffin makers, exhausted grave diggers, and a world too grief-stricken to offer the war a single word of praise.

The poem's core images of physical destruction and death.

Speaker calls the war 'eager and efficient' with biting irony in the poem's opening.

The war dispatches ambulances to various places, establishing a daily rhythm of violence.

The war tears into ruined buildings and digs up the earth, uprooting entire neighborhoods.

The war insists that women throughout the country keep wailing in grief.

Tyrants exploit the war's chaos to deliver long, self-serving speeches to the nation.

Military generals are awarded medals and honors for their roles in the bloodshed.

The bodies the war leaves behind in the open become food for scavenging flies.

The war adds new, devastating chapters of violence to the historical record.

The war teaches separated lovers to communicate through written letters across distances.

Young women across the country grow accustomed to endlessly waiting for absent soldier-lovers.

Newspapers fill their pages with articles reporting on the ongoing conflict.

The war builds orphanages to house the growing number of children left parentless.

The war invigorates the coffin-making trade as casualties continue to mount daily.

The leader smiles as the war consolidates his political power over the country.

The speaker declares the war works with 'unparalleled diligence' near the poem's close.

While the physical destruction of war is immediate and vivid, 'The War Works Hard' also catalogues the slower, deeper damage war does to a society's social and political fabric. The poem moves from its ironic opening praise of the war's efficiency to an accounting of how it silences women with grief, empowers tyrants with propaganda, and rewards generals with medals. Ordinary life is suspended: lovers write letters instead of living together, and young women wait endlessly at home instead of building futures. Children are orphaned and housed in new institutions, and the press fills with reports as the war transforms itself from lived catastrophe into public narrative. The poem ends on the bitter note that despite reshaping an entire society from top to bottom, the war earns not a single word of gratitude.

The poem's social and political consequences of war.

The poem opens by personifying war as a tireless, enthusiastic worker performing terrible deeds.

War's violence sends corpses swinging through the air and rolls stretchers to the wounded.

The war forces bereaved mothers to weep, summoning tears like rainfall from their eyes.

Survivors are pulled from the rubble of destroyed buildings, some lifeless, some still breathing.

War shoots fireworks and missiles into the sky, asserting its presence across the entire landscape.

The war turns fertile fields into danger zones by sowing them with hidden landmines.

The war forces entire families to flee their homeland and seek safety through emigration.

The war inspires tyrants to make speeches while simultaneously awarding medals to generals for their killings.

The war contributes to the artificial limb industry, supplying the thousands it has left maimed.

War becomes a media event as newspapers fill with photographs documenting scenes of devastation.

The war constructs new orphanages while systematically destroying the families that would fill them.

Grave diggers are kept perpetually busy by the relentless casualties the war produces.

The war paints a smile on the leader's face as it strengthens his grip on power.

The speaker underscores the war's relentless activity with the phrase 'unparalleled diligence.'

The poem ends on the ironic revelation that no one offers the war any praise.

From its very first lines, 'The War Works Hard' builds its central revelation: that war is not an abstraction but a tireless, almost human force that reshapes every corner of life. The speaker introduces war as a personified worker, then methodically reveals the depth of its reach — through the air, into the earth, across the fields, and into the political and emotional lives of ordinary people. A key turning point comes when the poem shifts from physical carnage to narrative distance, showing how war transforms into history and newspaper coverage even as it continues to destroy families on the ground. The construction of orphanages stands as a devastating symbol of this paradox: war builds only to replace what it destroys. The poem's final irony — that no one praises the war despite its ceaseless labor — crystallizes the speaker's indictment of war and those who perpetuate it.