Five Poems

Letters

Vol. 17 No. 23 · 30 November 1995

From Robert Sargent

Let me tell you about John Ashbery.
Grumbling if not the first, it comes
pernickity over the garnished brown-specked hill,
not unlike ‘Ash Wednesday’. ‘John, John,’
it seems to be saying, over and over,
as if there is nothing for us to do
but to be spelt on by those old witches,
icy in diaphicity. Yes, I did say that.
you heard it right, gloomy in the corner.
‘John Horner?’ And now at this point you should know
it’s Jack we’re talking beneath. Way, way down,
down, down, down. And surely right.

Robert Sargent
Washington DC