warsaw

Dorothy Parker är bland det vassaste och mest kompromisslösa som någonsin satt sin fot på jorden. Ingen kunde tala sitt hjärtas röst som hon. Hon var min bästa och sämsta förebild under tonåren. Någon att återkomma till för att söka tröst eller för att helt enkelt roa sig tillsammans med (oftast på andras bekostnad). Idag förknippas hon mest med dikten Résumé, självmordsförsöken och alkoholproblemen, men det finns så mycket mer än svärta att hämta i hennes verk.


ON BEING A WOMAN

Why is it, when I am in Rome,
I'd give an eye to be at home,
But when on native earth I be,
My soul is sick for Italy? 

And why with you, my love, my lord,
Am I spectacularly bored,
Yet do you up and leave me-
then I scream to have you back again?


BOHEMIA

Authors and actors and artists and such
Never know nothing, and never know much.
Sculptors and singers and those of their kidney
Tell their affairs from Seattle to Sydney.
Playwrights and poets and such horses' necks
Start off from anywhere, end up at sex.
Diarists, critics, and similar roe
Never say nothing, and never say no.
People Who Do Things exceed my endurance;
God, for a man that solicits insurance!


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.


REUBEN'S CHILDREN

Accursed from their birth they be
Who seek to find monogamy,
Pursuing it from bed to bed-
I think they would be better dead.


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 ponder on the narrow house.
I shudder at the thought of men....
I'm due to fall in love again.