Richard Castles: ‘At Robert’s Shelves’

At Robert’s Shelves

For all the applaudin’
Most live without Auden
Find no great need
For Edward Said
They tend to feel nauseous
At a spine labelled Borges
Feel no great loss
Who is John Dos Passos?
Some reach their seventies
Without Cervantes
Find they get by
Without Dostoyevsky
Still, once we settled
For gods who weren’t there
So, bolstered we are
By unread Flaubert

Richard Castles