What is a short summary of the poem "Five Ways to Kill a Man" by Edwin Brock?

"Five Ways to Kill a Man" is a fairly straightforward poem in terms of what events are taking place.  

The first stanza opens with a bold statement about there being "many cumbersome ways to kill a man."  It then continues to tell about the crucifixion of Christ.  The stanza coldly states what few tools and elements are needed to crucify a person.  

To do this properly you require a crowd of peoplewearing...

"Five Ways to Kill a Man" is a fairly straightforward poem in terms of what events are taking place.  

The first stanza opens with a bold statement about there being "many cumbersome ways to kill a man."  It then continues to tell about the crucifixion of Christ.  The stanza coldly states what few tools and elements are needed to crucify a person.  

To do this properly you require a crowd of people
wearing sandals, a cock that crows, a cloak
to dissect, a sponge, some vinegar and one
man to hammer the nails home.

Stanza two moves forward in time about one thousand years.  It talks about medieval knights battling each other in suits of armor.  It talks about how swords and arrows are designed to penetrate that armor.  The end of the second stanza also includes a bit of narration on the need for royalty to celebrate the violence being done at their command.  

Stanzas three and four are about World War I and II.  Stanza three focuses on how toxic gasses killed thousands of men in the trenches.  Stanza four is about the dropping of the atomic bombs on Japan.  There appears to be an insult directed at the US president for dropping the bombs.  The poem says that in order to drop the bomb, a "psychopath" is needed.  This stanza also ends by stating that the effects of the bombs lasted a lot longer than a day or two.  

                                         All you then
require is an ocean to separate you, two
systems of government, a nation's scientists,
several factories, a psychopath and
land that no-one needs for several years.

The fifth stanza states that all of the previous methods for killing a man are "cumbersome."  It states that the easiest way to kill a man is to just leave him somewhere in the twentieth century.  The narrator is calling reader attention to the increasing violence that has been happening throughout history.  In addition to that, the narrator is showing readers how mankind's technology has allowed us to kill in easier and easier ways from farther and farther away.  No longer do we need to stand next to the man we are killing and drive nails through his hands. We simply need to drop a bomb thousands of miles away with the push of a button and watch thousands of people die via live video feed.