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21 March 2019

Poetry Thursday - Syptom Recital by Dorothy Parker

First published 1952, this edition 1965 (love the cover!)

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. 

Dorothy Parker (via)


Sounds rather like cabin fever, that sort of state of mind....

2 comments:

  1. I agree cover is stunning
    Like the poem, just rolls along and been in some areas of it.

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  2. If nothing else, I had to look up the meaning of two words I was unfamiliar with - cavil and quondam. Wonderful words those. But I kept thinking as I read along, this is me on my worst days. And I don't even have the excuse she gives at the end - lol.

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