Sunday, August 07, 2005

PARSLEY IS GHARSLEY ! ( Part Two)

Read Part One ..Candy is Dandy first...

Didn’t have the heart to cut Ogden Nash short. Decided to keep you rolling on the floor with laughter, by adding on some extracts from his most hilarious poems and limericks.

This one which is one of his best is can you believe it , about standing without purpose on the road?

One of the hardest explanations to be found
Is an explanation for just standing around.
Anyone just standing around looks pretty sinister,
Even a minister;
………………………………..
Well, should any official ask you why you are just standing around,
Do you wish you could simply sink into the ground?
My dear sir, do not embarrassed, do not reach for your gun or your knife,
Remember the password, which, uttered in a tone of quiet despair,
is the explanation of anyone's standing around anywhere
at any hour for any length of time: "I'm waiting for my wife."


A few of his limericks about animals.

The cow is of bovine ilk;
One end is moo, the other is milk

The ant has made himself illustrious
Through constant industry industrious.
So what?
Would you be calm and placid,
If you were full of formic acid?

Ogden Nash also gets credit to having written the shortest poem ever.

Purity is obscurity.

On parents. This is a high five to all kids.

Children aren't happy with nothing to ignore,
And that's what parents were created for
.

But my favourite of all is his poem on visiting the dentist. This is what initiated my fascination towards Ogden Nash. I remember having it as a text back when I was in school.

This Is Going To Hurt Just A Little Bit

One thing I like less than most things is sitting in a dentist chair withmy mouth wide open.
And that I will never have to do it again is a hope that I am againsthope hopen.
Because some tortures are physical and some are mental,
But the one that is both is dental.

It is hard to be self-possessed
With your jaw digging into your chest.
So hard to retain your calm
When your fingernails are making serious alterations in your life line or love line or some other important line in your palm;
So hard to give your usual effect of cheery benignity
When you know your position is one of the two or three in lifemost lacking in dignity.

And your mouth is like a section of road that is being worked on.
And it is all cluttered up with stone crushers and concrete mixers and drills and steam rollers and there isn't a nerve in your head thatyou aren't being irked on.
Oh, some people are unfortunate enough to be strung up by thumbs.
And others have things done to their gums,
And your teeth are supposed to be being polished,
But you have reason to believe they are being demolished.

And the circumstance that adds most to your terror
Is that it's all done with a mirror,
Because the dentist may be a bear, or as the Romans used to say, onlythey were referring to a feminine bear when they said it, an ursa,
But all the same how can you be sure when he takes his crowbar in onehand and mirror in the other he won't get mixed up, the way youdo when you try to tie a bow tie with the aid of a mirror, and forgetthat left is right and vice versa?

And then at last he says That will be all; but it isn't because he thencoats your mouth from cellar to roof
With something that I suspect is generally used to put a shine on a horse's hoof.
And you totter to your feet and think. Well it's all over now and afterall it was only this once.
And he says come back in three monce.

And this, O Fate, is I think the most vicious circle that thou ever sentest,
That Man has to go continually to the dentist to keep his teeth in good condition when the chief reason he wants his teeth in good condition is so that he won't have to go to the dentist.


Classy, aint it?

9 comments:

Unknown said...

oh yeah!my fond memories, of reading it back then,are resufacing. He sure IS classy!

Deepti Ravi said...

@vikram yup!a truly great poet!!

nandini said...

ha! you found that dentist poem...!!!!! Was looking for it for ages!

Random Access said...

haha, i was looking for it too!

"Purity is obscurity." - this aint a poem, its a phrase...gosh nash did make rhyme look like a crime, but his admiration blows my imagination!

Random Access
The search has just begun !!!

Deepti Ravi said...

@nandini
you wont believe it! but it took me more than an hour to hunt that poem down!!!!
@random access
it does have the reputation of being the shortest poem :)

Random Access said...

oh izit, then what abt these?

Insanity is calamity!
Liability is instability!
Poverty is profanity!
Puberty is uncertainty!
Past is Lost!
Cause & because requires pause!
Stumped!

Damn tht guy, I feel like even I am a poet, if u call those poems :P

Random Access
The search has just begun !!!

Deepti Ravi said...

@RA
unfortunately my dear
It is quite clear
that so great is nash
that appreciated is his trash!

while you in all your zest
can go on and write your best
yet never be quoted, my lad
or make it the guiness,egad!

Prashanth said...

Oh I love Ogden Nash's work! Vikram Seth comes a close second.

Deepti Ravi said...

@priya
you've read his 'Candy is Dandy' collection?? its really superb!! Never stopped laughing!
@prashant
didn't realise i was surrounded by quite a few ogden nash fans!!! :) i have read just one vikram seth poem that was a text for me.it was really good. frog and the nightingale i think???