Happy birthday, Dorothy Parker (and Stacey Lehman! -- on August 18)

Happy Birthday, Dorothy Parker & Your "quondam dreams"

Symptom Recital

I do not like my state of mind;
I'm bitter, querulous, unkind.
I hate my legs, I hate my hands,
I do not yearn for lovelier lands.
I dread the dawn's recurrent light;
I hate to go to bed at night.
I snoot at simple, earnest folk.
I cannot take the gentlest joke.
I find no peace in paint or type.
My world is but a lot of tripe.
I'm disillusioned, empty-breasted.
For what I think, I'd be arrested.
I am not sick, I am not well.
My quondam dreams are shot to hell.
My soul is crushed, my spirit sore;
I do not like me any more.
I cavil, quarrel, grumble, grouse.
I pond on the narrow house.
I shudder at the thought of men . . .
I'm due to fall in love again.

--Dorothy Parker

 

Poem in the Manner of Dorothy Parker

Dorothy Parker,
who wrote witty stories,
did not foresee
that spectacles would be-
come fashion accessories.
“Men seldom make passes
At girls who wear glasses.”

Today, for a lark,
I sat in Washington Square Park
I thought of Miss Parker,
and what she might say
assessing the spectacles of our day:
“Even the nicest lasses
Have tattoos on their asses.”

-- David Lehman

Comments

[Emily Fragos]

Happy birthday, dear, wonderful Stacey! Eat cake and ice cream to your heart's content. "Even the nicest lasses/Have tattoos on their asses." Just fabulous, great!

[Terence Winch]

Yes---happy birthday to Stacey. I think it was Dorothy Parker who said "The Bronx: No thonx," but we forgive her.

[Emily Fragos]

Hi, dear Terence. "The Bronx, No Thonx" is one thing she did not say. A silly poem by Ogden Nash?

[Cindy Hochman]

It was indeed Ogden Nash who made that snide remark about Da Bronx. He later took it back and said: By 1964, Nash had changed his mind and said “I can’t seem to escape the sins of my smart-alec youth. Here are my amends. I wrote those lines, ‘The Bronx? No thonx!’ I shudder to confess them. Now I’m an older, wiser man I cry, ‘The Bronx, God bless them!”

My comment as a copy editor: I believe "smart alec" (sic) is not hyphenated and has a "k" in it: smart aleck. But I still love Ogden.

[Amy Donow]

Well done, David! Definitely in the manner of Dorothy Parker!