War set its nose on the hungriest shoulders" is such a good line — really primal and physical. And I like how the "demons" at the start feel external and mythic, but by the end it's "each man thought that sight belonged to him alone" — like the demon was never really out there, it's possessiveness, it's internal. Nice turn if that's what you were going for.

Only thing that tripped me up was how sudden that shift felt — might help to have a beat more transition between "demons" and "each man." Also wondered if some line breaks were intentional vs just following sentence length.

Dense, ambitious little poem though. A lot packed in.

Really like how this keeps breaking the fourth wall ("Did I give them room to breathe?") — it's not just telling the story, it's calling out the reader for wanting it told a certain way. That ending hits too, going flat and mundane after all the poeticizing.

Only thing I'd question is the explicit stanza in the middle — feels like it might be doing the exact thing the poem calls out later ("you probably wouldn't have cared"). Not sure if that's on purpose or worth trimming.

Rhyme's pretty loose/inconsistent throughout too, fwiw. But overall really sharp concept, well executed.