The HyperTexts
Dorothy Parker
Dorothy Parker (1893-1967) was an American poet and writer known for her wit, wisecracks, epigrams, short pithy poems and spoonerisms. But
she also wrote more serious poems reminiscent of those of Edna St. Vincent Millay and Sarah Teasdale. Parker won acclaim for her literary
feats in The New Yorker and later for her Hollywood screenwriting. After she earned two Academy Award nominations, her involvement in
alleged left-wing politics led to her being blacklisted. Parker was sometimes dismissive of her own talents and deplored her reputation as
a "wisecracker," but today she has achieved a stature comparable to that of famous wits like Oscar Wilde and Ogden Nash.
Spoonerisms
I'd rather have a bottle in front of me
than a frontal lobotomy.
You can lead a whore to culture,
but you can't make her think.
Epigrams
Brevity is the soul of lingerie.
Look at him, a rhinestone in the rough!
It's a small apartment, I've barely enough room to lay my hat and a few friends.
The first thing I do in the morning is brush my teeth and sharpen my tongue.
I wish I could drink like a lady
I wish I could drink like a lady;
I can take one or two at the most:
Three and I'm under the table,
Four and I'm under the host.
Our thanks to Anton N. (Tony) Marco for suggesting the poem above.
Unfortunate Coincidence
By the time you swear you're his,
Shivering and sighing,
And he vows his passion is
Infinite, undying―
Lady, make a note of this:
One of you is lying.
Résumé
Razors pain you;
Rivers are damp;
Acids stain you;
And drugs cause cramp.
Guns aren't lawful;
Nooses give;
Gas smells awful;
You might as well live.
Thought for a Sunshiny Morning
It costs me never a stab nor squirm
To tread by chance upon a worm.
"Aha, my little dear," I say,
"Your clan will pay me back one day."
Coda
There's little in taking or giving,
There's little in water or wine;
This living, this living, this living
Was never a project of mine.
Oh, hard is the struggle, and sparse is
The gain of the one at the top,
For art is a form of catharsis,
And love is a permanent flop,
And work is the province of cattle,
And rest's for a clam in a shell,
So I'm thinking of throwing the battle―
Would you kindly direct me to hell?
Our thanks to Tom Merrill for suggesting the poem above.
Little Words
When you are gone, there is nor bloom nor leaf,
Nor singing sea at night, nor silver birds;
And I can only stare, and shape my grief
In little words.
I cannot conjure loveliness, to drown
The bitter woe that racks my cords apart.
The weary pen that sets my sorrow down
Feeds at my heart.
There is no mercy in the shifting year,
No beauty wraps me tenderly about.
I turn to little words―so you, my dear,
Can spell them out.
Our thanks to Tom Merrill for suggesting the poem above.
But Not Forgotten
I think, no matter where you stray,
That I shall go with you a way.
Though you may wander sweeter lands,
You will not soon forget my hands,
Nor yet the way I held my head,
Nor all the tremulous things I said.
You still will see me, small and white
And smiling, in the secret night,
And feel my arms about you when
The day comes fluttering back again.
I think, no matter where you be,
You'll hold me in your memory
And keep my image, there without me,
By telling later loves about me.
Our thanks to Tom Merrill for suggesting the poem above.
Bric-a-Brac
Little things that no one needs―
Little things to joke about―
Little landscapes, done in beads.
Little morals, woven out,
Little wreaths of gilded grass,
Little brigs of whittled oak
Bottled painfully in glass;
These are made by lonely folk.
Lonely folk have lines of days
Long and faltering and thin;
Therefore—little wax bouquets,
Prayers cut upon a pin,
Little maps of pinkish lands,
Little charts of curly seas,
Little plats of linen strands,
Little verses, such as these.
Our thanks to Tom Merrill for suggesting the poem above.
Condolence
They hurried here, as soon as you had died,
Their faces damp with haste and sympathy,
And pressed my hand in theirs, and smoothed my knee,
And clicked their tongues, and watched me, mournful-eyed.
Gently they told me of that Other Side―
How, even then, you waited there for me,
And what ecstatic meeting ours would be.
Moved by the lovely tale, they broke, and cried.
And when I smiled, they told me I was brave,
And they rejoiced that I was comforted,
And left to tell of all the help they gave.
But I had smiled to think how you, the dead,
So curiously preoccupied and grave,
Would laugh, could you have heard the things they said.
Our thanks to Tom Merrill for suggesting the poem above.
Theory
Into love and out again,
Thus I went, and thus I go.
Spare your voice, and hold your pen―
Well and bitterly I know
All the songs were ever sung,
All the words were ever said;
Could it be, when I was young,
Some one dropped me on my head?
A Very Short Song
Once, when I was young and true,
Someone left me sad―
Broke my brittle heart in two;
And that is very bad.
Love is for unlucky folk,
Love is but a curse.
Once there was a heart I broke;
And that, I think, is worse.
Miscellaneous Epigrams and Short Poems. . .
A little bad taste is like a nice dash of paprika.
Men seldom make passes
At girls who wear glasses.
If all the girls who attended Yale were laid end to
end, I wouldn't be a bit surprised.
If, with the literate, I am
Impelled to try an epigram,
I never seek to take the credit;
We all assume that Oscar said it.
If you want to know what God thinks of money, just look at the people he gave it
to.
If wild my breast and sore my pride,
I bask in dreams of suicide,
If cool my heart and high my head
I think "How lucky are the dead."
I don't care what is written about me so long as it isn't
true.
Oh, life is a glorious cycle of song,
A medley of extemporanea;
And love is a thing that can never go wrong;
And I am Marie of Romania.
Beauty is only skin deep, but ugly goes clean to the bone.
Now I know the things I know,
and I do the things I do;
and if you do not like me so,
to hell, my love, with you!
Ducking for apples—change one letter and it's the story of my life.
My land is bare of chattering folk;
the clouds are low along the ridges,
and sweet's the air with curly smoke
from all my burning bridges.
I require three things in a man. He must be handsome, ruthless and stupid.
Authors and actors and artists and such
Never know nothing, and never know much.
Heterosexuality is not normal, it's just common.
When told that a certain woman wouldn't hurt a fly, Parker retorted, "Not if it was buttoned up.”
I've never been a millionaire but I just know I'd be darling at it.
Take care of the luxuries and the necessities will take care of themselves.
This is not a novel to be tossed aside lightly. It should be thrown with great force.
They sicken of the calm, who knew the storm.
The cure for boredom is curiosity. There is no cure for curiosity.
The best way to keep children home is to make the home atmosphere pleasant―and let the air out of the tires.
That would be a good thing for them to cut on my tombstone: Wherever she went, including here, it was against her better judgment.
I'm never going to be famous. My name will never be writ large on the roster of Those Who Do Things. I don't do any thing. Not one single
thing. I used to bite my nails, but I don't even do that any more.
She runs the gamut of emotions from A to B. [Speaking of Katharine Hepburn]
Incurable
And if my heart be scarred and burned,
The safer, I, for all I learned;
The calmer, I, to see it true
That ways of love are never new-
The love that sets you daft and dazed
Is every love that ever blazed;
The happier, I, to fathom this:
A kiss is every other kiss.
The reckless vow, the lovely name,
When Helen walked, were spoke the same;
The weighted breast, the grinding woe,
When Phaon fled, were ever so.
Oh, it is sure as it is sad
That any lad is every lad,
And what's a girl, to dare implore
Her dear be hers forevermore?
Though he be tried and he be bold,
And swearing death should he be cold,
He'll run the path the others went....
But you, my sweet, are different.
The HyperTexts