If People Disapprove Of You
Mrs. Hobson's Choice
Dorothy Parker's poems
Anon
A Word Of Encouragement
Wordsworth
Curl Up And Diet
If
If People Disapprove Of You by Sophie Hannah
Make being disapproved of your hobby.
Make being disapproved of your aim.
Devise new ways of scoring points
In the Being Disapproved Of Game.
Let them disapprove in their dozens.
Let them disapprove in their hordes.
You'll find that being disapproved of
Builds character, brings rewards.
Just like any form of striving
Don't be arrogant; don't coast
On your high disapproval rating.
Try to be disapproved of most.
At this point, if it's useful,
Draw a pie chart or a graph.
Show it to someone who disapproves.
When they disapprove, just laugh.
Count the emotions you provoke:
Anger, suspicion, shock.
One point for each of these
And two for each boat you rock.
Feel yourself warming to your task -
You do it bloody well.
A last you've found an area
In which you can excel.
Savour the thrill of risk without
The fear of getting caught.
Whether they sulk or scream or pout,
Enjoy your new-found sport.
Meanwhile all those who disapprove
While you are having fun
Won't even know your game exists
So tell yourself you've won.
Mrs. Hobson's Choice by Alma Denny
What shall a woman
Do with her ego,
Faced with the choice
That it go or he go?
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.
R�sum�
Razors pain you;
Rivers are damp;
Acids stain you;
And drugs cause cramp.
Guns aren't lawful;
Nooses give;
Gas smells awful;
You might as well live.
Indian Summer
In youth, it was a way I had
To do my best to please,
And change, with every passing lad,
To suit his theories.
But now I know the things I know,
And do the things I do;
And if you do not like me so,
To hell, my love, with you!
Comment
Oh, life is a glorious cycle of song,Never let a minute
Lie there on the shelf,
For there might be in it
All of life itself.
If you spread your dreams before you
Like a stairway to the sky,
No star you ever reach for,
Will ever be too high.
A Word Of Encouragement by J. R. Pope
O what a tangled web we weave
When first we practise to deceive!
But when we've practised quite a while
How vastly we improve our style!
To see a world in a grain of sand
And a heaven in a wild flower.
Hold infinity in the palm of your hand
And eternity in an hour.
Curl Up And Diet by Ogden Nash
Some ladies smoke too much and some ladies drink too much and some ladies pray too much,
But all ladies think they weigh too much.
They may be as slender as a sylph or a dryad,
But just let them get on the scales and they embark on a doleful jeremiad;
No matter how low the needle happens to touch,
They always claim it is at least five pounds too much;
To the world she may appear slinky and feline,
But she inspects herself in the mirror and cries, Oh, I look like a sea lion.
Yes, she tells you she is growing into the shape of a sea cow or manatee,
And if you say No, my dear, she says you are just lying to make her feel better, and if you say, yes, my dear, you injure her vanity.
Once upon a time there was a girl more beautiful and witty and charming than tongue can tell,
And she is now a dangerous raving maniac in a padded cell.
And the first indication her friends and relatives had that she was mentally overwrought
Was one day when she said, I weigh a hundred and twenty-seven, which is exactly what I ought.
Oh, often I am haunted
By the thought that someone might discover a diet that would let ladies reduce just as much as she wanted,
Because I wonder if there is a woman in the world strong-minded enough to shed ten pounds or twenty,
And say There now, that's plenty;
And I fear me one ten-pound loss would only arouse the craving for another.
So it wouldn't do any good for ladies to get their ambition and look like somebody's fourteen-year-old brother,
Because, having accomplished this with ease,
They would next want to look like somebody's fourteen-year-old brother in the final stages of some obscure disease,
And the more success you have the more you want to get of it,
So then their goal would be to look like fourteen-year-old brother's ghost, or rather not the ghost itself, which is fairly solid, but a silhouette of it.
So I think it is nice for ladies to be lithe and lissom,
But not so much that you cut yourself if you happen to embrace or kissome.
If you can keep your head when all about you
Are losing theirs and blaming it on you;
If you can trust yourself when all men doubt you
But make allowance for their doubting too;
If you can wait and not be tired by waiting,
Or, being lied about, don't deal in lies,
Or, being hated, don't give way to hating,
And yet don't look too good, not talk too wise.
If you can dream - and not make dreams your master;
If you can think - and not make thoughts your aim;
If you can meet with Triumph and Disaster
And treat those two imposters just the same;
If you can bear to hear the truth you've spoken
Twisted by knaves to make a trap for fools,
Or watch the things you gave your life to broken,
And stoop and build 'em up with worn out tools.
If you can make one heap of all your winnings
And risk it on one turn of pitch-and-toss,
And lose, and start again at your beginnings
And never breathe a word about your loss;
If you can force your heart and nerve and sinew
To serve your turn long after they are gone
And so hold on when there is nothing in you
Except the Will which says to them: 'Hold on'.
If you can talk with crowds and keep your virtue,
Or walk with kings - not lose the common touch;
If neither friends nor foes can hurt you;
If all men count with you, but none too much;
If you can fill the unforgiving minute
With sixty seconds worth of distance run -
Yours is the Earth and everything that's in it,
And - which is more - you'll be a Man, my son!