With Hidden Noise

This burnt out neon clack is to carry

a fire    a long free sea

It’s fine and cheap and here

where deserts provide and unravel apart

and never say sound

Just flicker the signs of dead orthography

a tenuous bargain if ever there’s time

to match response

             I’ll wind it up for you

             if you don’t look back

In response to Marcel Duchamp's ‘With Hidden Noise’ 1916.

See the artwork that inspired this poem in the flesh, along with more than 100 of Marcel Duchamp’s world-renowned pieces, in ‘The Essential Duchamp’ exhibition at the Art Gallery of New South Wales, 27 April – 11 August 2019.