The God of Dada

"We, the founders of Dada-movement try to give time its own reflection in the mirror." - Kurt Schwitters

1.
In Nineteen Hundred and Eighteen,
aesthetics tore, sternum to spleen.

The Somme and all its muddy mess,
the crows on bones, like Devil's chess,
to cinders burnt Olympic lutes,
Elysian harps, and faerie flutes.

The sceptre and the studded orb
lay strewn across the palace floor.
No painted nudes of Grecian grace,
no wedding gowns of Roman lace.

The guns had torn them all apart,
the trenches thick with dreams.

A blood-soaked muse stumbled towards
an old fountain, where muses drank,
but it was dry, and strewn about with bones...

To this the young bucks raised themselves,
to dust anew the empty shelves;
to take the bits of pottery,
the gilded frames, and poetry;
and mould them into horrid shapes,
confusing, mad, insulting japes.

As out in some Venetian street,
a pair of ladies came to greet.

But finding just each other, lone,
they sought a single thing to say.
'How sweet a corset! Whale-bone?'
'Let's take a gondola today.'

But neither of these felt correct,
and thus they stood in stiff silence.

Until the words came rushing forth:
"Piss off, you slut!" said one to one.
"I'll shove this brolly up your bum!"
the other cried, umbrella raised.

The god of Dada was alive
and singing in this new carnage.

2.
In Eighteen Hundred and Nineteen
The god of Dada was alive
and singing in the Somme,
as out in some Venetian street
a young buck raised itself,
galloped aboard a gondola,
and crushed a crow beneath a hoof,
its bird-y bones a row of pawns.

In stiff silence this felt correct,
a brolly up your bum.
"Piss on, you slut!" said Faerie Muse,
a blood-soaked sceptre in her grace
(a brolly being without lace).

The carnage singing, "pottery!
a shard of poem in its eye,
a cinder fountain by and by,
a gilded shelf and empty jape,
a trenches gown of bony lace:
please pack them in my gondola,
then teach the buck to steer."

3.
Muse a.
The of eye said then a god;
Blood-soaked alive;
Venetian in;
Silence in in without poem eighteen crushed singing fountain shelf teach;
Slut!" up;
To "pottery! a stiff hundred trenches singing buck.
Birdy galloped was out bony and;
Being brolly shard the of dada empty and gown in this;
In grace faerie its in by a as a correct them;
Lace a of buck brolly row somme of.
A a street on bum crow a a;
The a.
Raised beneath.
And my please a aboard her;
Nineteen by cinder gondola in.
Its sceptre hoof lace: and pawns;
And gondola bones carnage;
Jape your.
Itself steer" the "piss you;
Gilded pack;
Young some felt;