Western Suite for Trading Fours with Some Semblance of Something Having Happened Before
“If something is boring after two minutes, try it for four.”—John Cage
Under the impression
that some kind
of tuning was going on
the audience continued
their small talk
and in the process
the history of art happened—
if you have to ask
you'll never know
some semblance
of something
having happened before:
a musty accordion in Miami
a wadded-up newspaper
stuffed into a speaker
Howlin’ Wolf in Memphis, 1951
there’s no doubt about it
about any of that anyway
saying one thing
but saying something else
with the same words
the impracticality of conversation
no real idea of what to expect
stopped short of
some loose furl of
some lost future of
polyphonic spores
the software of your heart
wear it in your sleep
hit the snooze for your part in it
a few atmospheres up your sleeve
warm sympathies without melodies
a lack of closeness, and yet
closer together
Western Suite for a Book Beginning Massed Disguise and Ending Adages
for Clark Coolidge
The so
below
so what?
So so sailor
so many salads
not always so
sometimes
you might say
so that being said
it’s so
did you hear about so and so
my hair got long
and on and on?
So if
so what?
So it goes
such a gift
such death
such living that goes on
-
Kyle Harvey is a poet, filmmaker, and musician. He is the author of Cosmographies (Cuneiform Press, 2022), as well as the editor of Coolidge & Cherkovski: In Conversation and Neeli Cherkovski's forthcoming Selected Poems 1959-2022. A finalist for the Colorado Book Award and winner of the Mark Fischer Poetry Prize, his work has appeared in A Dozen Nothing, American Life in Poetry, Entropy, Heavy Feather Review, Pilgrimage, SHAMPOO, Think Journal, The Wallace Stevens Journal and elsewhere. He lives in Fruita, Colorado, where he manages Lithic Bookstore and designs books for Lithic Press. Read more at: https://kyleharveypoet.com/.