Wednesday, September 01, 2010

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

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