The Bullet Holes of Peace
Michael St.Mark 2014

London Dada Work from 2014, re-posted at 7.30am on July 1st 2016, 100 years to the minute when 20,000 British troops were sent to pointless deaths on the Somme on the back of the deceit of politicians and bumbling incompetence of the military generals.

” 20,000 lives for 3 square miles” – M. St.M

Echoing and reminding also of the obscene debacle that was the illegal Iraq war and forthcoming Chilcot inquiry report on the bare-faced lies told by this country’s then prime minister as justification to go to war with a country not threatening this one in the slightest.

Cenotaph Blair _________________________ Art Axis 2012”                           “Tony Blair – an infamous legacy writ large in the blood of a million innocents “

Cenotaph Blair ( Damaged Goods edition )
Edition of 1 worldwide. Framed within a blood red poundshop frame, glass cracked as when bought as discounted damaged goods.
7″ X 5″ ( with frame 10″ X 8″ )
Signed by the artist on verso
£2004
Enquiries; sales@LondonDada.com

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” I feel now, as I felt then; that the politicians who took us to war should have been given guns and told to settle it themselves instead of instigating what is nothing less than legalized mass murder ” – Harry Patch, last surviving WW1 soldier

” The war is based on a glaring mistake – men have been confused with machines” –  Hugo Ball, father of Dada, 1916

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Link to the original post
War protest art on Pinterest

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Dulce et Decorum Est, by Wilfred Owen

Bent double, like old beggars under sacks,
Knock-kneed, coughing like hags, we cursed through sludge,
Till on the haunting flares we turned our backs
And towards our distant rest began to trudge.
Men marched asleep. Many had lost their boots
But limped on, blood-shod. All went lame; all blind;
Drunk with fatigue; deaf even to the hoots
Of tired, outstripped Five-Nines that dropped behind.

Gas! GAS! Quick, boys! – An ecstasy of fumbling,
Fitting the clumsy helmets just in time;
But someone still was yelling out and stumbling
And flound’ring like a man in fire or lime …
Dim, through the misty panes and thick green light,
As under I green sea, I saw him drowning.

In all my dreams, before my helpless sight,
He plunges at me, guttering, choking, drowning.

If in some smothering dreams you too could pace
Behind the wagon that we flung him in,
And watch the white eyes writhing in his face,
His hanging face, like a devil’s sick of sin;
If you could hear, at every jolt, the blood
Come gargling from the froth-corrupted lungs,
Obscene as cancer, bitter as the cud
Of vile, incurable sores on innocent tongues, —
My friend, you would not tell with such high zest
To children ardent for some desperate glory,
The old lie: Dulce et decorum est Pro patria mori.
( ” It is sweet and honourable to die for one’s country ” )

No sanitized cenotaph memorials here