A Ready Made Poem by B. Elizabeth Beck

Marcel DuChamp made the first bicycle wheel attached to a stool "readymade" in 1913, and made it again when the original was lost.

A Ready-Made Poem
I don’t believe in art. I believe in artists. – Marcel Duchamp

I call my dog and can’t hear my own voice
ponder the question redundant
marvelous inexplicable Beethoven
who heard the music as loudly as I blast
Phish in my ears, it occurs to me--

the risk necessary to compose genius:
listen to nothing and assemble everything.
There is no original language,
only divine voices worth studying
searching for recognition making

me laugh at the page exploding Whitman’s
barbaric yawp and Ginsberg’s Howl descending
Saul’s galactic journey in the spot
        where truth  echoes seeking
               feminism beyond Jong searing
          song lyrics dividing skies melting
the yellow brick road into Pink Floyd’s dark
side of the moon Flaming Lips purse as the flea
flits from John Donne’s metaphysical mind
for whom the bell tolls Hemingway haunts
the same streets in Key West I linger kissing

metaphors stumbling over my own Dadaist
tendencies embracing my absurd understanding
of reality blurring my vision haphazard compositions
plot curves knighted by Marcel Duchamp secreting
doors while all the while pretending earnest defiance,
makes me love him even more.

B. Elizabeth Beck

This poem is from B. Elizabeth Beck's manuscript, Painted Daydreams. The writer, artist and teacher is the author of two poetry books, and founder of central Kentucky's Teen Howl Poetry Series. She lives in Lexington, Kentucky.