Poems by Dorothy Parker

"Men"
They hail you as their morning star
Because you are the way you are.
If you return the sentiment,
They'll try to make you different;
And once they have you safe and sound,
They want to change you all around.
Your moods and ways they put a curse on
They'd make of you another person.
They cannot let you go your gait;
They influence and educate.
They'd alter all that they admired,
They make me sick, they make me tired.

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"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 lovlier lands.
I dread the dawn's recumbant 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 alot of tripe.
I'm disillusioned, empty-breasted.
For what I think, I'd be arrested.
I am not sick, I am not well.
My quondom dreams are shot to hell.
My soul is crushed, my spirit sore;
I do not like me anymore.
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.

"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,
Someone dropped me on my head?