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.