Dada Manifesto
by Ribemont-Dessaignes / 1920


Before going down among you
to pull out your decaying teeth,
your running ears,
your tongues full of sores,

Before breaking your putrid bones,
Before opening your cholera-infested belly
and taking out for use as fertilizer
your too fatted liver,
your ignoble spleen
and your diabetic kidneys,

Before tearing out your ugly sexual organ,
incontinent and slimy,
Before extinguishing
your appetite for beauty,
ecstasy, sugar, philosophy,
mathematical and poetic metaphysical
pepper and cucumbers,

Before disinfecting you with vitriol,
cleansing you and shellacking
you with passion,

Before all that,
We shall take a big antiseptic bath,
And we warn you
We are murderers.



Read by seven people
at the demonstration at the
Grand Palais des Champs Elys'es,
Paris, 5 February 1920