Philip Allen, “The War Washes Up no.11” (2014), pen and ink on paper, 3.5 x 4.5 inches (image courtesy the artist)
We are magicians, able to fight invisible wars on foreign shores. Never a whiff of burnt flesh except for 9/11. Never encountering a severed arm in the road, like Giacometti, while fleeing strafing fighter planes. What of all the invisible mayhem our military inflicts? What if the exploded bodies, the dismembered body parts, suddenly started to appear in our most beloved, sacred places of repose? Washing up on a pristine beach on Deer Isle, Maine, evidence of events far away? Would a head here, a leg there, temper our ardor for War?
