Dorothy Parker (1893–1967) used her talents to speak her mind through a candid pen.

August

• When my eyes are weeds,
• And my lips are petals, spinning
• Down the wind that has beginning
• Where the crumpled beeches start
• In a fringe of salty reeds;
• When my arms are elder-bushes,
• And the rangy lilac pushes
• Upward, upward through my heart;

• Summer, do your worst!
• Light your tinsel moon, and call on
• Your performing stars to fall on
• Headlong through your paper sky;
• Nevermore shall I be cursed
• By a flushed and amorous slattern,
• With her dusty laces’ pattern
• Trailing, as she straggles by. 

A Very Short Song

• Once, when I was young and true,
• Someone left me sad —
• Broke my brittle heart in two;
• And that is very bad.

• Love is for unlucky folk,
• Love is but a curse.
• Once there was a heart I broke;
• And that, I think, is worse.

A Dream Lies Dead

• A dream lies dead here. May you softly go 
• Before this place, and turn away your eyes, 
• Nor seek to know the look of that which dies 
• Importuning Life for life. Walk not in woe, 
• But, for a little, let your step be slow. 
• And, of your mercy, be not sweetly wise 
• With words of hope and Spring and tenderer skies. 
• A dream lies dead; and this all mourners know: 

• Whenever one drifted petal leaves the tree — 
• Though white of bloom as it had been before 
• And proudly waitful of fecundity — 
• One little loveliness can be no more; 
• And so must Beauty bow her imperfect head 
• Because a dream has joined the wistful dead! 

Dorothy Parker (1893–1967) was an American writer, known for her poetry, short stories, and criticism, much of which was infused with a unique satirical style popular even to this day. Defined by her acerbic wit — she is often considered a successor of sorts to Oscar Wilde — she used her talents to speak her mind through a candid pen about the folly and vanity of the 20th Century. Her poetry, though, often shows an equally tender side to her talent. A founding member of the Algonquin Round Table, she established her literary footing through publication in The New Yorker before heading west to try her hand at Hollywood screenwriting, a career abridged after being blacklisted for her left-wing politics.