Most Read... John McAuliffeBill Manhire in Conversation with John McAuliffe
(PN Review 259)
Patricia CraigVal Warner: A Reminiscence
(PN Review 259)
Eavan BolandA Lyric Voice at Bay
(PN Review 121)
Joshua WeinerAn Exchange with Daniel Tiffany/Fall 2020
(PN Review 259)
Vahni CapildeoOn Judging Prizes, & Reading More than Six Really Good Books
(PN Review 237)
Christopher MiddletonNotes on a Viking Prow
(PN Review 10)
Poems Articles Interviews Reports Reviews Contributors
Reader Survey
PN Review Substack

This poem is taken from PN Review 99, Volume 21 Number 1, September - October 1994.

Four Poems John Ashbery

Eternity Sings the Blues
Music lovers everywhere
endorse it - just thought I'd let
you know it's National Frivolity Week
again. Will they ever get done
with these things? Stop commercialising 'em?

Music and worry - the two most terrible
things a man can know. How about
women? Strangely, they come off better
just by observing things. This hundred-year-old
spoon is evidence enough of that. How so?

But music, played by a gifted child,
is just about the finest thing anywhere.
Puts me in mind of a cigar
I smoked in a picket line once. They all thought
the boss hired me to do it. Now I ask you.
...


Searching, please wait... animated waiting image