Dorothy Parker

Dorothy Parker

Dorothy Parker had rhyme, wit, sauciness

She was sexy and sad

She had taste,

If not in men-

Wherein she was a little like a sailor

Any port in a storm - you know what I mean-

And for her

The weather report rarely said blue skies-

Then in matters.

Miz Parker she had acuity

She could see

Feel

Articulate-

Without pity.

But all that smartness, that irony, the attention-seeking self deprecation

Gift-wrapped in that terrific understanding of human nature-

Particularly of

Weakness

In a nice self-indulgent way

Guaranteed to engineer dissolution in the end

And deliver

What we might delicately call

Secret pleasures.

But in time they were

All lost at sea

With all hands aboard-

Traceless on the surface

Down into the deep

Lost.

To drunken despair and loneliness

And the ravages wrought.

It is-

What it is.

You can't have her poetry without it

Nor her sensibility.

Ordered reasonable lives

Don't make for something to say

We know that-

Though they do

Rather well.

But and then again, what

Can you properly say-

The Parker magic had class

Her laconic work

And pomaded, fragrant, rich friends

Did give birth to The New Yorker

For New York to determine its taste in things

And

For blind Ved Mehta to write in.

Gautam Mukherjee

Janmashtami.

2nd September 2010